Free Republic

By now, the third week of Israel’s Operation Projective Edge, surely there can be no one unaware of the tunnels Hamas spent five years – and millions of dollars of aid money – building to serve as underground bunkers for Hamas’s leadership and as infiltration routes into Israel. Here are photographs of two such tunnels: [SNIP] Actually, I just lied. For while the top photo is indeed a Hamas “terror tunnel,” the bottom photo, however much it might resemble a tunnel, is in fact a bomb shelter, circa World War II. Comparing the two photos, it would seem obvious that...

Mideast: Finally, the president has scolded Hamas for using its tunnels to attack Israel. But he should also fault his former secretary of state. It was Hillary Clinton who aided their construction. Rewind to 2012. Then, as now, Hamas terrorists in Gaza were raining rockets on Israeli towns. Eight days of cross-border fighting claimed 166 Palestinian and six Israeli lives. Just 48 hours before Israeli troops planned to invade Gaza, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brokered a cease-fire. She flew to the region and met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders and announced a peace deal from Cairo. The cease-fire held,...

A Hamas terror cell attacked a Givati unit on Friday in Rafah and kidnapped an officer after the Israeli soldiers discovered a large cross-border terrorism tunnel, stretching from Rafah deep into Israel, a senior army source said Saturday. A tunnel shaft on the Gazan side surfaced in an open area surrounded by homes. Terrorists emerged from the shaft, and a suicide bomber detonated himself near the soldiers, before the officer was kidnapped, the source said.

WASHINGTON — Following the quick collapse of the cease-fire in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the White House not to force a truce with Palestinian militants on Israel. Sources familiar with conversations between Netanyahu and senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, say the Israeli leader advised the Obama administration “not to ever second guess me again” on the matter. The officials also said Netanyahu said he should be “trusted” on the issue and about the unwillingness of Hamas to enter into and follow through on cease-fire talks. An Israeli official said the Netanyahu government viewed...

Israel knows that the leaders of the terrorist group Hamas are headquartered the Shifa hospital in Gaza: It was Israel that build the hospital – including the bunker in the basement that Hamas uses as its headquarters. The Israelis are so sure about the location of the Hamas bunker, however, not because they are trying to score propaganda points, or because it has been repeatedly mentioned in passing by Western reporters—but because they built it. Back in 1983, when Israel still ruled Gaza, they built a secure underground operating room and tunnel network beneath Shifa hospital—which is one among several...

As casualties mount and calls  for a cease-fire grow, the war  in Gaza is probably close to  quitting time. But nobody should be foolish enough to think that silencing the guns will mean a return to the pre-war status quo. For Israel, a business-as-usual approach is no longer possible. The barrage of Hamas rockets cannot be tolerated again because the weapons’ increased range puts the entire population in harm’s way. But something else also happened in the last two weeks, and the shock waves are just starting to roll through Israeli society. The discovery of Hamas’ vast tunnel system, which...

Three IDF soldiers were killed on Wednesday in Gaza in an explosion at a booby-trapped UNRWA health clinic that housed the opening of a tunnel, the IDF’s Gaza Division commander, Brig. Gen. Micky Edelstein, said. Two of the three were named as Staff Sgt. Matan Gotlib, 21, of Rishon Lezion, and Staff Sgt. Omer Chai, 21, of Savion. The three troops, part of the elite Maglan unit, were taking precautionary measures in efforts to limit damage to the structure before eliminating the tunnel, when the explosives detonated in the small building.

Video of an entire Hamas complex being demolished by Israel.

Sami Turgeman says army has uncovered and is disabling most terror tunnels dug under Israeli border Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip are weakening and losing morale “in all parameters,” the commander of IDF forces in southern Israel said Friday, but added that the troops on the ground needed more time to completely root out terror tunnels burrowing into Israel.

Hamas’s attack tunnels are now recognized as a major danger, but Israel would have to reconquer Gaza to make sure they aren’t rebuilt, and that would cause untenable losses. The tunnels inside Gaza and under the Israeli border are not a secret project Hamas ran under the noses of Israel and the Palestinian public. Every child in Gaza, like every junior officer in IDF Military Intelligence, knew that, beneath Gaza City and beyond, a network of tunnels was being dug over the past five years, with an investment of millions of dollars. In other words, Gaza Underground Yet the Israeli...

Terrorists emerged from tunnel into Israel, opened fire on IDF jeep, killing Amotz Greenberg, 45, and Adar Barsano, 20; IDF fears there are 20 more such tunnels. Two IDF officers were killed Saturday morning when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israeli territory via a tunnel under the border fence from the central Gaza Strip and ambushed a military vehicle patrolling on the Israeli side of the border, the IDF said Saturday evening. The two were named as Amotz Greenberg, 45, a major in the reserves from Hod Hasharon, and Sgt. Adar Barsano, 20, from Nahariya. The information was cleared for publication after...

Up to 200 smuggling tunnels shut since Egyptian President Morsi took office; some 30% of all goods reach Gaza through tunnels. Egyptian forces have flooded smuggling tunnels under the border with the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip in a campaign to shut them down, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said. The network of tunnels is a vital lifeline for Gaza, bringing in an estimated 30 percent of all goods that reach the enclave and circumventing a blockade imposed by Israel for more than seven years. Reuters reporters saw one tunnel being used to bring in cement and gravel suddenly fill with water on...

Media bias: Reuters vs Arabic al-Ahram... REUTERSArmed men attack checkpoint in Egypt's Sinai Reuters Wed Aug 8, 2012 5:43am IST CAIRO Aug 8 (Reuters) - Armed men opened fire on a security checkpoint on Wednesday in Egypt's Al-Arish city in the Sinai peninsula, state media said, after 16 border guards were shot dead in an attack on Sunday blamed partly on Palestinian militants. A Reuters reporter in the border town of Rafah said heavy equipment was brought to the Egyptian side of the tunnels, which are used to smuggle people to and from Gaza as well as scarce food and...