An Israeli report criticised what it referred to as the Israeli army’s “failures” in combatting the Palestinian tunnels and thwarting the digging operations in the areas separating the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948.
Israeli State Comptroller, Joseph Shapira, noted the presence of “gaps and failures, some of them serious, in preparations to meet the threat of the tunnels and in dealing with them,” in the years preceding “Operation Protective Edge” and during the offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to “hit Gaza harder than during the 2014 war” in light of reports indicating the Israeli settlers’ growing fears of the underground tunnels in Gaza.
In statements he made during a conference for Israeli diplomats on Sunday, Netanyahu said: “In the event we are attacked from tunnels in the Gaza Strip, we will act very forcefully against Hamas, and with much more force than ‘Operation Protective Edge’.”
Israeli military, political and settlement sources have expressed their concern recently that the Palestinian resistance will use the tunnels to attack Israel and hit targets along the Gaza border.