Several Israeli bulldozers leveled land within the border area of the central Gaza Strip on Thursday morning, Ma’an reported, citing Arab witnesses. The witnesses said five Israeli D9 bulldozers were razing lands ten meters inside Gaza near the al-Bureij refugee camp.
The Israeli Armored Caterpillar D9—nicknamed Doobi for teddy bear—is an armored bulldozer that was modified by the Israeli Military Industries and Israel Aerospace Industries to increase the survivability of the bulldozer in hostile environments and enable it to withstand heavy attacks, thus making it suitable for military combat engineering use. It is operated by the IDF Combat Engineering Corps in combat engineering and, most frequently, in counter-terrorism operations.
The witnesses added that IDF drones flew overhead during the operation. No one was injured.
The IDF routinely enters the Gaza Strip near the buffer zone on the borderline between Gaza and Israel. In this case, although not yet confirmed by the IDF spokesperson’s office, it appears that the heavy machinery was there to detect and demolish underground terror tunnels which Hamas is digging across the border, to be used by terror squads in kidnapping operations.
Israel Radio reported Thursday that Hamas has been paying thousands of dollars a month to the tunnel diggers of the Gaza Strip. altogether it is estimated the terrorist government employs some 1,000 diggers, each making between $300 and $400 a month. Hamas also invests a fortune in smuggling in from Israel and Egypt construction material, raw materials, and electric digging machinery to be used in tunnel digging.
An Israeli government source told Kol Israel Hamas would have been able to construct whole neighborhoods for Gaza’s homeless population with the wealth it invests in tunnel digging.