Col. (res) Atai Shelach, former commander of the elite Yahalom unit, tells the Walla news website he’s certain there are cross-border tunnels in northern Israel.
“Those who think it [the tunnel threat] doesn’t exist in the north, doesn’t live in the Middle East. Hezbollah, too, has been and continues to be engaged in this,” he says.
Shelach’s statements come hours after Yair Golan, the head of the Northern Command in the IDF, says the military “is not aware of the threat of terror tunnels crossing over from Lebanon into Israel.”
Shelach adds, ominously, that the tunnel threat has only just begun, but emphasizes that he is confident tunnel detection technology will soon be developed.
With regard to Hamas’s tunnels in the Gaza Strip, he says he was “not surprised” by the number of tunnels, but he was taken aback by the level of operational sophistication and the terror organization’s use of motorcycles.
During the ground offensive, IDF troops uncover motorcycles stashed in tunnels which were intended for use to carry out attacks and kidnappings against Israeli civilians.
Soldiers from the Givati Brigade seen at the entrance to a Hamas ‘attack tunnel’ on Wednesday, July 23, 2014. (photo credit: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit/Flash90)
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