How to go about destroying Hamas infrastructure in the underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip is the main issue that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is facing at the moment, Eyal Pinko, an Israeli military expert, told Sputnik.
“The first attacks made mainly by the [Israeli] Air Force and the artillery were to destroy Hamas infrastructure above the ground, in buildings and infrastructure like that. And with what we see in the last few days… they [IDF] are using bombs that are penetrating the ground in order to destroy […] the tunnels,” said the Israeli lecturer in intelligence, cyber, national security, and maritime security.
“This is the main attacking vector for now,” the senior researcher emphasized.
Israel appears to be ramping up its ground-based operations inside the Gaza Strip almost three weeks after Hamas launched its surprise offensive into southern Israel on October 7. Amid media reports and video footage of large-scale air strikes pummeling the Gaza Strip, and reports of tank fire, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari made a televised address on Friday evening, saying that his country was "prepared on all fronts to preserve Israel's security," and forces were "expanding their ground operations" in order to “achieve the goals of the war."
A picture taken from near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, shows an Israeli Merkava tank rolling close to the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas.
© AFP 2023 / ARIS MESSINIS
Furthermore, early on Saturday media reports cited Hamas as claiming that it had thwarted an attempted ground assault by Israel’s military on Gaza. The militant group added that Israeli forces were caught in ambushes, and purportedly sustained heavy losses.
Eyal Pinko weighed in on the latest developments amid the new spiral of the Palestine-Israel conflict, saying that the Israeli military was carrying out “some ground maneuvers inside the Gaza Strip,” aimed at “cleaning the area of terrorists, and going out.”
Referencing the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, Pinko claimed that “Israel understood that there is no other choice for peace [in Gaza], than to just to eliminate Hamas leadership and destroy Hamas.”
“Israel understands that all Hamas infrastructure is below ground. Everything is underground,” the pundit reiterated.
His remarks come as the Israeli military recently released 3D-rendered footage showing an alleged Hamas headquarters set up deep underneath the Al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. The video, published by COGAT, a unit of the Ministry of Defense, purported to show a vast network of tunnels, conference rooms, arms and fuel caches, and even a makeshift weapons factory.
Al-Shifa, like other Gaza hospitals, has been crowded and overwhelmed amid Israel’s campaign of air and artillery strikes on the territory. Earlier, an attack on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on October 17 killed over 470 people. Israel had denied responsibility, claiming that a rocket fired from inside Gaza was to blame for the deadly blast. However, Gaza's officials have dismissed these allegations, accusing Tel Aviv of responsibility for possible “war crimes.”
Despite the civilian death toll growing in Gaza, and the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the enclave with its population of 2.1 million people, Israel has rejected calls for a ceasefire contained in the nonbinding resolution overwhelmingly passed by the United Nations General Assembly on October 27.
As protesters across the globe voice support for Palestinians in Gaza, while warning of the risk of the Palestine-Israel conflagration escalating into a wider Middle East conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to lead Israel to a “crushing victory” over Hamas, depicting it as a “fight for our existence” in his address to the nation earlier in the week.
Amid the latest developments, numerous humanitarian organizations and international media lost contact with staff and colleagues on Friday amid the Gaza Strip's blackout of Internet and cell phone services. US billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk promised on Saturday that his company SpaceX would support communications in Gaza with internationally recognized organizations
28 October 2023, 08:40 GMT