Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. IMAGE: IDF Spokesperson
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) thwarted the smuggling of 15,000-20,000 rockets into the Gaza Strip, outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said on January 8 during a visit to the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel.
It remained unclear how the Israeli military chief of stawff does not know the real number of rockets, which were alelgedly attempted to be smuggled into Gaza.
Furthermore, 2018 saw the most serious peak of violence between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Accordng to the Israeli side, Palestinian armed groups fired over 1,000 rockets on Israeli targets.
Furthermore the IDF claims that it struck targets belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza a total of 865 times during the past year. These targets allegedly included headquarters, tunnels, military positions, technological facilities, training camps, weapons caches and Hamas’ naval arm.
