Army says ‘we knew Sufa attack was coming’

The army says it knew about the Thursday morning infiltration by 13 Hamas fighters into Israel before it happened.

“We knew this would come. We knew specifically about this tunnel. We knew Hamas would try [to launch a terror attack] in any way it can,” IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz tells Channel 2.

“This attack was meant to be a killing spree in one of the villages nearby,” Almoz says. The volley of rockets that hit central Israel in the last hour, just ahead of a humanitarian ceasefire beginning at 10 a.m., “was meant as an envelope for this attack,” he adds.

The IDF has foiled multiple such surprise attacks in recent days, including two attempted infiltrations near Kibbutz Zikim by Hamas frogmen.

Israel’s Southern Command had been preparing for such attacks for a while, Almoz explains. “[Southern Command chief] Maj. Gen. [Sami] Turgeman has spent days and nights preparing for this, and the forces were on very high alert. We are working to make every morning turn out like this. We assume Hamas has more tunnels and plans more attacks.”

So far, Hamas has only delivered operational failures, Almoz says.

It is not clear how the Hamas fighters fared in the fighting. “We don’t know that 13 terrorists are dead,” Almoz says in response to an anchor’s question, “but that 13 fled. We’re not sure how many are hurt or killed. We know Hamas is under massive pressure; this failure only increases the larger failure.”

He lists the IDF units involved in the successful interception of the Hamas attack: the anti-insurgency Egoz battalion, the elite Maglan unit, the 401st Armored Brigade and reserve units called up in recent days.

“Hamas was surprised again,” Almoz concludes.