The maneuver of Division 36 in the refugee camps of the central Gaza Strip keeps yielding achievements: Yesterday, brigade 188 invited local and international journalists to review underground complexes found in the Al-Bureij refugee camp, with intelligence guidance. In the compounds, found in deep tunnels, there are real factories – centers for the manufacture of TNT, laboratories for the manufacture of explosive devices, and lathes for the development of mortar shells and rockets. Dozens of serious machines were found in the compound, which was the basis for Hamas’ production and development of weapons.
Rockets were also found in various stages of preparation, some of which are large enough and have a strong enough range to fire at targets in the north of the country – that is, practicaly covering all of Israel’s territory. It should be noted that the factories that were found were all in the heart of residential areas, and in the war context, in close proximity to the Salah-a-Din road, which is the humanitarian crossing that Israel has opened to the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to the south, and therefore has refrained from attacking in its area (even now). In fact, some of these factories were found to be so deep that it is doubtful that standard aerial bombardments would have been useful against them.
The destruction of the factories is of great importance, as the industrial tools were a capital asset in the hands of Hamas. With the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, Israel struggled to cope, but altogether concentrated efforts could limit the phenomenon; self-production of weapons is another matter, which cannot be dealt with except by destroying infrastructure, and frequent ground entry in certain areas (the IDF has not acted seriously in Bureij since Operation ‘Cast Lead’ in 2009). This reflects the daily struggle waged by the IDF in the West Bank against attempts by the terrorist organizations to develop independent production of weapons, and not depend on smuggling.
The IDF plans to destroy the tunnels it found and the weapons production machinery with them, soon; but the finding, location, and the energies invested by the terrorist organization reflect the necessity of this war.
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