Hamas received a rather nasty 36th birthday present on Thursday when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a video of a deadly attack on Hamas terrorists underground, accomplished through the use of a probe and weapons activated remotely.
(The video cannot be shared by Breitbart News because of its depiction of death and the visibility of corpses, but it is available here.)
The IDF announced Thursday that it would continue to use such devices to kill Hamas terrorists in their formerly safe tunnels, and that it had begun planting explosives within the Hamas tunnel network, which would be monitored and detonated when Hamas terrorists walked by.
In his evening briefing, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said (via IDF translation):
Tonight we are revealing documentation from a special operation by the IDF and the ISA. The operation took place during the past days, targeting terrorists inside Hamas tunnels. Our soldiers planted explosives in an underground tunnel, identified the terrorists using cameras, and eliminated several terrorists in the incident. Hamas terrorists, and their leaders in particular, choose to hide underground – this is Hamas’ method. They hide underground while using the civilians above them as human shields. We have new combat methods that we will deploy to kill terrorists. We will enter, plant explosives in locations we know terrorists frequent, and will wait for the right moment to kill them underground. The terrorists won’t be safe underground.
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Today, December 14th, marks the 36th anniversary of Hamas’ founding. Instead of the usual military parade pictures, we saw pictures of dozens of terrorists, emerging from their hiding place in Jabalya hospital with raised weapons, surrendering themselves to the IDF and the ISA for investigation. Today, we killed terrorists in Shejaiya and the Khan Yunis areas – this is what the anniversary of Hamas’ founding looked like. We will continue our battles against the Hamas terror organization. We have many more objectives to achieve and there will be more tough battles in the days to come, but we will continue with determination to further our achievements, and to put pressure on Hamas.
Separately, the IDF reportedly confirmed that it had been flooding the tunnels with seawater, though in a limited form, to test the viability of the tactic. The Times of Israel reported Thursday that the trial was a success and flooding will be used more broadly.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.