Israel’s Defence Minister claims army finally tackling Gaza tunnel threat after years of neglect

Israel’s Defence Minister has accused the country’s former military chief of staff of misrepresenting the success of Operation Guardian of the Walls, claiming that the Israeli Defence Force is now addressing the tunnel threat in Gaza for the first time. Speaking to Channel 14, the minister dismissed previous statements about the operation as a “joke” and suggested that earlier accounts of achievements against the underground network had been overstated. The comments mark a significant shift in Israel’s public assessment of its past military operations in Gaza and the effectiveness of previous efforts to neutralise the tunnel infrastructure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had declared in 2021, immediately following the conclusion of Operation Guardian of the Walls, that Israeli forces had damaged over 100 kilometres of tunnels and severely compromised the militant infrastructure beneath Gaza. “We struck the tunnels, damaged the infiltration system, and destroyed much of the network,” Netanyahu stated at the time. The latest remarks suggest that senior Israeli officials now believe those earlier claims may have underestimated the scale of the ongoing tunnel problem and the challenge it continues to pose to Israeli security.

Source: Ynet — Original article in Hebrew.