Day 25 of Operation Protective Edge

PREAMBLE: We now enter the twenty-fifth day of Operation Protective Edge, with conflict still raging heavily.

Thursday saw 90 rockets fired at Israel, several Israelis hurt by mortar fire, ongoing IDF strikes at Hamas targets in Gaza and tunnel demolitions, and US criticism of an Israeli strike that killed a reported 15 people at a UN school in Gaza on Wednesday.

The Israeli full cabinet met in Tel Aviv, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that he would not agree to any ceasefire proposal that prevented the IDF from finishing dealing with Hamas’s network of terror tunnels.

Earlier Thursday, ToI’s Avi Issacharoff returned from seeing that work first-hand, in Khan Younis.

Here’s an excerpt from his piece:

“Toledano, 40, explained that the tunnel was about 2 kilometers long (slightly more than a mile). Presumably acting on intelligence information of some kind, his brigade had begun moving into the area 12 hours ago to find and destroy it. He pointed to the building, which was punched all over with bullet holes. The tunnel shaft was discovered in the backyard, Toledano said.

“In the yard, a giant D9 bulldozer had exposed one of the tunnel entrances. It only took a glimpse into the shaft to recognize that Hamas had spent a considerable amount of time, effort and money on its construction. The walls were lined with concrete, and the shaft went down far into the depths of the earth.

“The house belonged to a Hamas member, and a large amount of weaponry, including an RPG launcher and ammunition, as well as various propaganda booklets, were found here, we were told.”

— The full story is here.