Yuval Diskin, head of the General Security Service (GSS), says that while Israeli-Egyptian-Hamas negotiations over an extended ceasefire drag on, Hamas is rebuilding and using its arms-smuggling tunnels. He spoke at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday morning.
“We see that Hamas is making efforts to rebuild the tunnels,” Diskin said, referring to the many that were destroyed in the recent Cast Lead offensive waged by the IDF against Hamas terrorism. “Since the ceasefire went into effect [nearly a month ago], we have identified several incidents of smuggling of war materials.”
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima) said, “The weapons smuggling has remained the Achilles’ heel of the situation in Gaza. We must fight this smuggling the same way we fight rocket attacks from Gaza.”
Disagreement on Egypt
Dichter, who preceded Diskin as head of the GSS, disagreed with him on Egypt’s role in the situation. Diskin said the Egyptians are “acting in a manner that indicates a war against the smuggling,” though he admitted that they are relatively slow. Dichter, for his part, said that the Egyptian activity is “too slow,” and that the Israeli government must "therefore give the appropriate instructions to the IDF.”
“We need not wait for rockets to be fired at Yavneh,” Dichter said, referring to a long-range rocket that was fired from Gaza over the weekend towards Gan Yavneh, not far from Ashdod. No one was hurt in that attack.
Egypt’s role – or lack of it - in stopping arms smuggling into Gaza has long been cited by some Israeli government officials as an important part in the buildup by Hamas of its weapons and arms arsenals.
Israel Bombs Six Tunnels
Late Friday afternoon, the IDF announced that the Israel Air Force had bombed six arms-smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Route between Gaza and Egypt. Secondary explosions were noted in several of the tunnels, indicating the presence of explosives.
Hundreds of tunnels were destroyed by Israel during the recent offensive, but it was estimated that approximately 100 still remained.
On Jan. 18, the day the offensive ended, Diskin predicted at a Cabinet meeting that despite the serious impairment of Hamas's smuggling abilities, Hamas would be able to rebuild the tunnels within a few months' time.