Chief of Staff: Gaza Tunnels 'Serious', Not Existential Threat

Jerusalem, 22 March, 2017 (TPS) -- IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said Wednesday that while Hamas tunnels into Israel should be taken seriously, they do not represent an existential or a strategic threat.

Speaking to a Knesset State Control Committee about State Comptroller Yosef Shapira’s recent report about the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, Eisenkot said “the underground threat is very serious, and we treat it as such. But I don’t think it is an existential or strategic threat.”

Eisenkot said the army discovered more than a dozen tunnels from Gaza into Israeli territory during the operation, which allowed Hamas members to infiltrate Israel and led to the deaths of 13 soldiers during the fighting.

Notably, Operation Protective Edge was not the first time Israel had discovered tunnels from Gaza into Israel: In 2006 Hamas operatives tunneled under an IDF base at Kerem Shalom to kidnap Corporal Gilad Shalit. Shalit was injured in the attack and dragged into Gaza via the underground passage.

Eisenkot, who served as deputy chief of staff at the time, also told the committee that the report is “highly significant” and that the army would use it  “learn and improve.”

The army commander added that the IDF and defense ministry have dedicated more than NIS 4 billion since Protective Edge to defend against the tunnel threat, including NIS 1.2 billion for training programs to develop effective responses to the threat, including an advanced radar system and an intelligence gathering apparatus, and another NIS 3 billion to shore up the border fence between Israel and Gaza, including an underground cement wall.

“I’m not talking about all of this in future. [These things are in production] today in order to provide a better response to the threat,” Eisenkot said.