Anti-Hamas militia says it is destroying terror group’s tunnels in Gaza

The leader of an anti-Hamas militia based in IDF-controlled areas of the southern Gaza Strip said recently that it is working on demolishing the terror group’s tunnels, a confirmation that further shows Israel’s support for the armed gang.

“We have gradually begun dismantling the tunnels, as they are the most important weapons. Then the weapons production facilities, then the rockets, and finally the light weapons,” said Ghassan al-Duhaini, the leader of the Popular Forces.

“In the future, not a single illegal weapon will enter Rafah, and smuggling operations will be dealt with in full force,” Duhaini said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Alongside the post, he published an image showing members of the Popular Forces outside an entrance to a tunnel while wearing oxygen masks.

The Popular Forces was founded by an anti-Hamas armed Bedouin leader, Yasser Abu Shabab. Abu Shabab was killed in December in what the group described as a family feud. He was replaced by his deputy, Duhaini, who vowed no let-up in the fight against Hamas.

Israel has previously acknowledged its support for militias fighting Hamas in the enclave. It has provided them with weapons, air support, intelligence, food, and cigarettes, as well as airlifted wounded militia members into Israel for medical care.

The militia controls an area between the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt and an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint screening Palestinians returning to the Strip. There have been reports of harsh treatment by members of the Popular Forces against Palestinians returning to Gaza, before the militia members handed them over to the IDF.

Last month, the militia captured a prominent Hamas commander in the Rafah area after he fled a tunnel, and later handed him over to the Israeli military. According to the IDF, the Hamas commander was among eight terror operatives who emerged from a tunnel overnight and were targeted in airstrikes, and added that he was a “key commander” in Hamas’s East Rafah Battalion.

On Monday, the spokesman for Hamas’s armed al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, issued a threat to the Popular Forces and other Israeli-backed Palestinian militias in Gaza, saying: “A dark fate is coming soon.”

“Their ending will be death and annihilation, and the enemy will not protect them from the justice of our people,” said Abu Obeida.

The threat appeared to come in response to a statement by Popular Forces leader Duhaini on Monday mocking the death of the scion of a prominent Hamas family.

Troops kill Gazan who crossed Yellow Line, IDF says

Elsewhere in the Strip, the IDF said that a Palestinian who crossed the ceasefire line in northern Gaza earlier Saturday was killed by troops.

According to the military, the terror operative crossed the Yellow Line and approached soldiers of the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade “in a manner that posed an immediate threat.”

“Immediately after identification, the forces eliminated the terrorist in order to remove the threat,” the IDF said.

Since the start of the ceasefire in October, the IDF has said it has killed dozens of terror operatives and other “suspects” who have crossed the Yellow Line — demarcating the military’s withdrawal in the Strip — and approached troops. Such incidents have taken place on a near-daily basis.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.