Click to see full-size image. (The Israeli Defense Forces).
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced on January 18 that it had completely destroyed the main rocket and weapon manufacturing industrial zone of the Hamas Movement in the central Gaza Strip, along with a vast tunnel network beneath it.
Israeli troops located additional sites recently in the Maghazi area as well as between Bureij and Nuseirat, the IDF said in a statement.
According to the IDF, the 36th Division, the Yahalom combat engineering unit and Air Force’s Shaldag unit discovered and destroyed dozens of tunnel shafts in the area of Salah a-Din road in central Gaza, that connect to hundreds of kilometers of underground passages.
One of the tunnel shafts was allegedly located in the home of a senior Hamas commander responsible for the rocket manufacturing operation.
The IDF said that the tunnels led to underground sites used by Hamas to manufacture rockets and other weapons, as well as passages used by the group to transport munitions to all parts of Gaza.
Both above and below ground in Maghazi, Bureij and Nuseirat, the IDF said that it discovered steel workshops, chemical and explosives factories as well as storage sites for long-range rockets.
There has been a significant drop in the rate of rocket fire from Gaza in recent weeks, mainly as a result of the Israeli occupation of large parts of the Strip.
Nevertheless, Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions in Gaza are still heavily-armed and putting up fierce resistance from the north to the center and south of the Strip.
