GAZA — Although the US-brokered cease-fire between Israel Defense Forces and Hamas has been in place since October, Israeli forces claim there are violations “every day.”
“We see them test our troops. We see them carrying out attacks every week… [Hamas] injured and killed soldiers since the ceasefire began,” IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told The Post at a military outpost in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.
With the sounds of sporadic gunfire and an IDF drilling machine burrowing into a newly discovered Hamas terror tunnel just across from a military outpost, a second IDF spokesperson said: “There has been shooting here in the last two weeks.”
Despite the celebratory mood after Trump announced his 20-point peace plan, Israel has returned to the area to ensure it is kept secure and terms of the ceasefire are being abided by. The president is set to visit the area on Feb. 19.
The IDF is set implement operations in the Gaza Strip, including in the city of Deir al-Balah, if Hamas refuses to disarm, The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will decide if he will issue the greenlight for military incursions into areas beyond the established yellow line that separates IDF-controlled territory in Gaza, estimated to be 53%, from the enclave area, which is still under Hamas control.
The second core part of Trump’s cease-fire involves the dismantlement of Hamas’ military and weapons arsenal.
“Gaza will be a terror-free zone,” said Shoshani about the next step in the peace plan. Shoshani claimed there are “thousands of Hamas fighters” in Deir al-Balah.
He compared the terror group’s vast underground tunnel system to “a spider’s web” that is “maybe the world’s largest terror tunnel structure in history.”
The tunnels have been known about for decades, but the full scope only began to be revealed during the Israel-Hamas war following the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.
The IDF spokesman said, “We are finding tunnels every week” on the Israeli side of the yellow line. A significant part of the tunnel system in territory controlled by Hamas is still believed to be operating.
The IDF is working at a breakneck speed to fill tunnels it finds with cement or blow them up to ensure they are no longer usable.
IDF officials have stressed that Hamas is not disarming and has explicitly violated their pledge to hand over its weapons.
Shoshani said: “It is very clear that Hamas does not want to disarm. We have the tools to make them disarm, even though they committed to it.”
Just this week, Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Norway’s public broadcaster NRK that the terrorist organization will not disarm, declaring “the resistance will be continued.”
Hamdan also falsely claimed Israel itself carried out the massacre at the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, according to JNS.
The Hamas official flatly rejected the Hamas invasion of Israel, which resulted in the murder of more than 1,200 people and 251 hostages taken, even though it was exhaustively documented.
From the view of the military outpost, the group of foreign journalists embedded with the IDF can see yellow blocks are blanketed across a former agricultural field in Deir al-Balah to demarcate the yellow line that bars Palestinians from entering the Israeli-controlled section of Gaza.
The entry point into central Gaza is called Kissufim, which is named after Kibbutz Kissufim, and borders Deir al-Balah. The IDF says 4,200 trucks of humanitarian aid enter Gaza via the Kissufim crossing every week.
With Israelis drones hovering over the IDF military outpost to spot Hamas attackers, signs of Palestinian activities can be discerned in Deir al-Balah: A light in a house and smoke arising from a building.
According to Reuters, Trump is slated to announce during his visit that several countries will supply thousands of troops to act as part of a stabilization force in Gaza.
The question for Israeli forces is whether those troops will fare any better at getting Hamas to disarm, as agreed to in the peace plan.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
