Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Monday confirmed that the “underground infrastructure” destroyed by the Israeli Airforce overnight according to the IDF Spokesperson, was a terror tunnel. “We destroyed a terrorist tunnel near Kerem Shalom tonight,” the minister said.
“These events prove that the IDF is prepared for any scenario with zero alert time,” Liberman boasted. “It was not easy to achieve such a capability,” he said, adding this was an important message “for both the residents of the south and the residents of the north.” added the defense minister, where “we can continue life’s routine and we are definitely prepared and do everything so that the routine will continue.”
About a month ago, after the discovery and neutralization of another terrorist tunnel that passed under the Kerem Shalom crossing, Liberman announced that all the terror tunnels would be demolished by the end of the year.
“I tip my hat to the IDF soldiers and to the Jewish mind that invented a magic dome (for discovering tunnels),” Liberman said, and promised that “by the end of 2018 we will demolish all the attack tunnels in Hamas’ possession. We will succeed in eliminating them, that is our task. I assume it will happen even earlier, but the mission is that by the end of 2018 there will not be a single offensive tunnel left.”
Liebrman attacked Hamas, saying that digging the tunnel under the Kerem Shalom crossing was intended to harm the citizens of the Gaza Strip.
“This is a cynical leadership that wanted to hit the main oxygen pipeline that supplies all or most of the aid to the Gaza Strip,” he said about the terrorist organization running the strip. “It only shows whom we’re dealing with on the other side, let us not delude ourselves.”
But the defense minister estimated that despite Israel’s counterterrorism activities, no confrontation is expected in the south: “I don’t believe Hamas is interested in a war, because I don’t believe it has a different expectation than we do of the inevitable ending of such a war.”
“Our strategy therefore is clear,” Liberman stated: “We are putting pressure on Hamas before an all-out campaign would ever break out.”