Subterranean passage, some 2.5 kilometers long, was likely to be used for attack or kidnapping
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| Brig. Gen. Michael Edelstein, commander of the Gaza division, entering the tunnel Sunday. (photo credit: Mitch Ginsburg/ Times of Israel staff) |
Security forces last week discovered and rendered unusable an underground tunnel linking Gaza and Israel, likely intended to facilitate a terror attack or kidnapping attempt inside Israel, the IDF said Sunday morning.
The tunnel, which an official said was particularly wide and about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) long, started in Abbasan al-Saghira, a farming village near Khan Yunis, in Gaza, and terminated inside Israel about three kilometers from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, in the western Negev.
It was found on October 7, military officials said.
The military said it waited a week to publicize the discovery because a search for explosives was underway. The army said an elite engineering corps was sent into the tunnel, but no explosives were found.
Abu Ubaida, a nom-de-guerre for the spokesperson of Hamas’s armed wing, wrote on Twitter in Arabic that “The will engraved in the hearts and minds of the men of resistance is much more important than the tunnels dug in the mud. The former will create thousands of the latter.”
Army spokesman Maj. Guy Inbar said the halt on all construction material to Gaza, announced Sunday, was enacted due to security considerations and was not meant as a punishing measure.
For years, Israel prevented the transfer of construction materials into Gaza because it said militants could use the materials to build crude rockets and explosives for attacks against Israel.
Eshkol Regional Council head Haim Jelin described the tunnel as “like a NY subway.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday the discovery and neutralization of the tunnel was part of “an aggressive policy against terror… [that includes] prevention, intelligence activities, preventative measures, actions in response [to attacks] and, of course, Operation Pillar of Defense,” referring to the November 2012 mini-war between Israel and Hamas.
Last Tuesday, IDF Chief Benny Gantz warned that the next war could be sparked by a “tunnel packed with explosives that reaches a kindergarten.”
Earlier reports claimed that the tunnel terminated near a kindergarten in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, but the military denied that.
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