ISRAELI forces claim they have found another Hamas tunnel – this time hidden beneath a baby cot in northern Gaza.
Footage shared by the IDF appeared to show a company commander in the 931st Battalion giving a tour of the home in Jabaliya, where the soldiers claim to have found the tunnel.
The IDF said the underground passage is a “strategic” Hamas attack tunnel, The Times of Israel reports.
It was later destroyed by combat engineers.
IDF troops added they found more secret passages and weapons after raiding offices and vacation homes of Hamas bosses, including Yahya Sinwar’s, also known as “Gaza’s Bin Laden”.
During the operations in Khan Younis, the brigade’s troops killed “many terrorists,” including some by tank shelling, the IDF says in a statement.
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Troops also uncovered some 30 tunnel shafts, struck dozens of anti-tank missile launch sites and observation posts, and seized weapons used by Hamas operatives, along with intelligence materials, the IDF claimed.
“We found weapons, tunnels inside vacation homes of senior Hamas officials,”commander of the 7th Armored Brigade, Col. Elad Tzuri, said.
“We see a lot of tunnel shafts here, still encountering the enemy but gaining operational control of the area.”
The Israeli military added troops also raided an outpost belonging to the terror group’s Deir al-Balah battalion and seized intelligence materials, The Times of Israel reports.
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In another raid, troops seized weapons and equipment at the home of a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba forces, the IDF added.
It comes after Israel reportedly started pumping seawater into Hamas’s sprawling network of tunnels in Gaza in a bid to flush out terrorists.
The IDF is said to have installed at least five pumps close to the Al-Shati refugee camp in the besieged enclave, aiming to use them to destroy the underground labyrinth.
The pumps would pour in thousands of cubic metres of water per hour from the Mediterranean Sea, which would drive out or drown Hamas terrorists.
US officials have now revealed the operation has begun and will supposedly take weeks according to the Wall Street Journal.
The underground network that stretches some 500km is used by the terror group as a hiding spot and to transport people and goods as well as store rocks and ammunition.
But it is also believed that hostages are being kept inside the booby-trapped tunnels.
The outlet reported last week that Israel was considering the tactic which IDF chief Herzi Halevi branded as “a good idea but I won’t comment on its specifics.”
He added: “We are seeing a lot of underground infrastructure in Gaza, we knew there would be a lot. Part of the goal is to destroy this infrastructure.
“We have various ways [to deal with the tunnels]. I won’t talk about specifics, but they include explosives to destroy, and other means to prevent Hamas operatives from using the tunnels to harm our soldiers.”
In northern Gaza, Israeli military claimed to have unearthed another of Hamas’s terror tunnels under Gaza’s largest hospital.
Footage released by the IDF appeared to show a tunnel shaft hidden in the rubble, and a stash of weapons allegedly found in a pick-up truck in the al Shifa Hospital.
Troops claim the booby-trapped vehicle was prepared for the October 7 massacre, as it contained a large amount of weapons and ammunition.
IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “We found a vehicle filled with ammunition, RPGs, AK-47s, we see handcuffs, knifes, preparation for taking of hostages from Israel on the October 7 attack.
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“As you can see, they were very well prepared and where they’re hiding all of this equipment is in a hospital – a place that is supposed to be for humanitarian aid.”
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Juliana Cruz Lima
