WATCH: Gaza Jihadi group reveals new terror tunnels in underground video report
By publishing a video from within the terror tunnels on Iranian television, The al-Aqsa Brigades has continued pushing their own brand of psychological warfare against the Israeli people.
By NOAM AMIR/MAARIV HASHAVUAUpdated: JULY 7, 2015 20:57Hamas shows new tunnels built in Gaza(photo credit: ARAB MEDIA)
A year after the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, the al-Aqsa Brigades published a video from inside a terror tunnel allegedly leading from Gaza to the Israeli border.In the video posted Sunday on Iranian television, one of the terrorists seen in the video said the tunnel measures 3.5 kilometers wide and is made entirely of concrete. The reporter in the video suggested that the underground tunnel crossed over the Israeli border but an official assessment states that this information is false.According to the report, jihadis shown on camera said they intend to use the tunnel to carry out attacks against civilians in the next scuffle with Israel.Gaza Jihadi group reveals new terror tunnels in underground video report Much of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, focused on discovering and destroying terror tunnels dug by operatives, intended to be used to break into Israeli territory undetected to carry out terrorist attacks. A year on, numerous communities still host IDF forces on a permanent basis due to their proximity to the Gaza Strip.Across the border, the IDF has seen Hamas dig tunnels intensively. It is likely that Hamas is digging, thinking that this will provide it with an advantage in the next round. Disturbingly, it is not entirely clear whether any of those tunnels have crossed the border into Israel.In Gaza, Hamas's weapons factories have been churning out many new rockets. Hamas is digging new tunnels in earnest, its guerrilla-terrorist military wing, Izzadin Kassam, is holding combat training drills under Israel's nose, and its planners are coming up with new ways to try and surprise the IDF.In response, the IDF has begun deploying components of a new hi-tech underground tunnel detection system. The system is still at an early stage, and it is incomplete. But it can detect tunnels.It is one component of a multi-layered defensive military network, spread out across the area, which the IDF's Gaza Division believes puts Israel in a far better place than it was prior to Operation Protective Edge last summer.Yaakov Lappin contributed to this story.