Channel 12 News revealed this week that contrary to the IDF’s assertion that a tunnel that extended 500 meters into Israeli territory was under close surveillance since October 7th, terrorists emerged from the Gazan side of the tunnel several times during the war, and one terrorist even killed IDF soldier, Sgt. Tamir Barak, H”yd, and wounded a number of other soldiers.

In addition, Channel 12 discovered that the existence of a second tunnel near Kibbutz Nir Oz which was also known to the IDF and through which terrorists emerged in several instances and attacked soldiers that entered the south of the Strip.

The new information shows that in practice, Hamas used the first tunnel to attack IDF forces on and near the border already in the first days of the war, even before the ground operation. On October 22, when IDF forces entered Gaza near Kissufim to prepare for the ground operation and to look for Israeli bodies that were scattered in the area at the time, a terrorist squad emerged from it and a terrorist threw an RPG at them, killing Barak, z’l. [These details were published after the IDF confirmed that Barak’s family had been informed of the circumstances of his death.]

According to the report, only a part of the tunnel was known to the IDF, as it’s very difficult to confirm how many shafts and cross branches each tunnel has.

There was another tunnel in Gaza opposite Kibbutz Nir Oz that exited from a point east of Khan Younis and until October 7th, IDF officials were divided over whether the tunnel crossed into Israel or not. Ultimately, it was discovered that although it came very close to the border, it did not cross into Israel.

In the first month or two of the war, many terrorist squads emerged from the tunnel and attacked IDF forces in Gaza.

Along the entire Gaza border, from south to north, there were tunnels that came very close to the security fence without crossing into Israeli territory and that were not detected by the “smart fence.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)