Hamas downplays IDF achievement in destroying terror tunnel
The IDF and the Kassam Brigades spokespersons’ statements appeared to contradict each other, as the former seemed to insinuate the tunnel had recently been in use and the latter denied the fact.
By ADAM RASGONUpdated: MARCH 19, 2018 02:09
A tunnel in the Gaza border region that Israel destroyed Sunday morning was “disused,” Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said on Sunday.Earlier on Sunday, the army knocked out a tunnel near the Gaza border that Hamas terrorists had tried to rebuild, an IDF spokesman said in a phone call. That tunnel had been cut off during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the spokesman said.“The tunnel that the enemy is talking about is an old and disused tunnel that was previously targeted after the Kassam Brigades used it... during the Eaten Straw battle in 2014,” Abu Obeida said in a tweet, referring to Hamas’s name for the 2014 war.The IDF spokesman and the Kassam Brigades spokesman’s statements appear to contradict each other, as the former’s remark seems to insinuate the tunnel had recently been in use.However, later on Sunday in a phone call, another IDF spokesman refused to say if Hamas terrorists had recently operated in the tunnel.Tunnels dug by Hamas in the Gaza border region are meant to launch cross-border attacks against Israelis, according to the second IDF spokesman.