By SP Staff
Recently, Israeli troops discovered “a wide, branching tunnel used by Hamas roughly three meters (10 feet) wide and about four kilometers (2.5 miles) long…the largest uncovered in the fighting so far,” according to Haaretz. In a recent op-ed from Haaretz, the longest running Israeli newspaper, Israeli journalist Chaim Levinson contrasted these recent discoveries with Israeli claims that many of the wide and vast tunnels of Hamas were destroyed in a 2021 air raid.
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Below is a compilation of these revealing quotes, representing an Israeli critique of the Netanyahu administration and Likud party.
Walla news site’s defense correspondent, Amir Bohbot, sent a voicemail in a WhatsApp group after the 2021 air strikes. Bohbot described a significant victory and annihilation of Hamas militants:
“”Friends, I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you know, but these days are very complex and difficult. There have been fatalities on the home front and in the IDF.
“But I can’t say everything. Last night the IDF turned everything on its head. We simply ripped them to shreds in one of the air force’s biggest operations ever, sending 160 planes in less than half an hour into a very, very narrow space, one of the most crowded in the world. We took out 450 armed fighters and … all their tunnels and launch pits.
“It’s for good reason they didn’t fire on Tel Aviv last night; they’re still in shock from what we’ve done. After that we played a crazy trick on them – and I can’t elaborate on that either. But it’s really, really exciting, and every person who recites kiddush over the wine this evening should bless the IDF soldiers, amen.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed at the time, “Hamas invested an entire decade in digging tunnels, and most of them, not all, [but] a large part, have gone down the drain. The Hamas metro has changed from a strategic asset into a death trap for terrorists.”
The former defense minister said of the 2021 air raid:
“”In the past few days the IDF, under the command of Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, has transformed Gaza’s tunnel network – used for storing weapons – from underground hideaways into death traps. The Hamas metro has become a hell train. This strategic achievement in the war on Hamas is puncturing its war doctrine.”
Journalist Yaov Limor raved about the 2021 strikes, exclaiming that “[Hamas’s] secret card [had become] a death trap.” Further, he added: :”When the fighting is over and the time comes to draw conclusions, Hamas will have to figure out not only how it was denied its most significant capability, but also what this says about the future: whether its tunnel project changed from a solution to a problem.”
According to Eliezer Toledano, who was the Southern Command chief of the IDF at the time, only about 10 Hamas militants were killed in the tunnels during the 2021 air strikes.
Now, Israel is discovering more of the wide tunnel systems that just two years ago Netanyahu alleged the IDF had destroyed “a large part” of. As Levinson put it:
“The national strength-and-pride industry glories in everything the Israel Defense Forces does. It weeps over every article in tabloid Israel Hayom’s Friday edition on the cooperation between a paratrooper officer and his buddy in the Armored Corps.”
“The whole purpose of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit is to put lipstick on nonsense.”