Hezbollah Smuggling to Gaza, Hamas Tunneling to Israel, Shin Bet Chief: “We Mustn’t Get Involved”

Terrorists Tunneling Towards Israeli Civilians, by Gil Ronen (Israel National News)

Full Text;

Arab terrorists in Gaza are digging tunnels towards Jewish communities in southern Israel, according to GSS Head Yuval Diskin.

Diskin says that the terrorist organizations have dug a network of tunnels from Gaza towards Israeli territory. The purpose of the tunnels is to detonate large charges under Israeli civilian and military targets. Israel’s security arms believe a number of tunnels, in various states of completion, already exist.

Diskin says that underneath what he termed the “relative quiet” on the Gaza front in recent months, the terrorists have been digging tunnels. Unlike tunnels they dug in the past, which ran mostly towards Egyptian territory and were meant to smuggle weapons and personnel in from the Sinai area, these tunnels are being dug towards Israeli territory. It was a similar tunnel that Hamas and its allies used to enter an army camp near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Gaza, Israel and Egypt last June, when they abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit and killed two other soldiers.

A resident of one of the kibbutzim near Gaza recently reported that the inhabitants have been hearing the sound of hammer blows underground, although it was not clear where precisely they were coming from. The residents, he says, are convinced that they are hearing the sound of an Arab terrorist tunnel being dug underneath their feet.

The civilians in the area are concerned that terrorists might detonate explosives underneath one of the Jewish communities or infiltrate through the tunnel and carry out an attack against a civilian community.

Related Story: Former OC Southern Command: Diskin Remarks ‘Scandalous ‘

Excerpts;

“Diskin said Monday that Hizbullah had successfully smuggled 33 tons of explosives into the Gaza Strip. He also revealed that Hamas had smuggled 30 tons of high-grade explosives from Sinai into Gaza in 2006. Hamas, Diskin added, was currently in the midst of digging 10 tunnels from the Gaza Strip and under the security fence into Israel.”

“‘We mustn’t get involved,” he said, “otherwise we will ruin everything.'” : Diskin’s Answer.