BICOM

It was reported yesterday that the IDF destroyed another tunnel from Gaza into Israel. The tunnel, which ran from Gaza’s Shejaiya neighbourhood to an exit near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, was located during the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the summer and was disabled but not fully destroyed until now. The report surprised some Israeli observers, who had assumed that all the known tunnels from Gaza had already been destroyed.

A report by Amos Harel in Haaretz notes that some other tunnels were only partly destroyed and that Hamas is trying to repair them, forcing renewed IDF action. Harel also reports that new tunnel-digging is taking place deeper inside Gaza.

According to the report, Hamas is also severely lacking in rocket stocks after the summer and is prioritising the building of new rockets. Hamas has also held multiple test-firings of rockets from Gaza into the sea in a likely attempt to test newly-produced rocket stocks.

Harel reports that Hamas’s attempts to rebuild its terror infrastructure have been hampered by Egypt’s enforcement of anti-smuggling measures.

11 Israeli soldiers were killed in attacks from Hamas tunnels. Most of these soldiers were killed by Hamas tunnel attacks inside Israel and not in the Gaza strip. After recent escalation on Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria, the IDF has been searching for similar infiltration tunnels dug by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, a powerful committee of Palestinian political factions has called for a ban on products from six Israeli food companies. The move was presented as retaliation for Israel’s decision to withhold tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority after Mahmoud Abbas’s unilateral steps at the Security Council and International Criminal Court. Similar boycott and ban moves have been announced before but have not been successfully implemented.