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With Mapping Robots and Blast Gel, Israel Wages War on Hamas Terror Tunnels
Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists during a ground operation in a location given as Gaza, in this handout image released Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
After locating what they described as the entrance to a Hamas tunnel under an evacuated hospital in northern Gaza, Israeli army engineers filled the passage with exploding gel and hit the detonator.
The blast engulfed the building and sent smoke spewing out of at least three points along a nearby road in a district of the city of Beit Hanoun, surveillance footage showed.
“The gel spread out and exploded whatever they had been waiting for us in the tunnel,” an army officer told reporters at a briefing at Zeelim Ground Forces Base in southern Israel.
Clearing the tunnels is an important part of Israel‘s military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response to the Palestinian terrorist group’s deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
When not using munitions to map out the bunkers, access shafts, and tunnels which both sides say run for hundreds of kilometers under Gaza, the army opts for tracker robots and other technology operated remotely.
The officer could not be identified under the rules of the briefing, and declined to provide further details of below-ground combat which he said was a work in progress. He did not name the hospital in Beit Hanoun.
“I think there are other methods being developed,” he said. “That is where creativity and innovation come in handy.”
In Beit Hanoun, where his forces were operating, some gunmen had stormed the Israeli military from tunnel shafts and had been killed, he said.
Israel‘s policy, he said, was not to send personnel in the other direction to confront Palestinian fighters who would have a defender’s advantage in narrow, dark, under-ventilated and collapsible passages with which they were familiar.
“We don’t want to go down there. We know that they left us a lot of side-bombs [improvised explosives devices],” he said.
One such bomb, rigged to the cover of a tunnel-access shaft at ground level, had killed four special forces reservists last week.
WEB OF TUNNELS
Hamas has tunnels for attack, smuggling, and storage, security sources say. Dozens of shafts can lead to each tunnel at depths of between 20 and 80 meters (65-260 feet).
Destroying a shaft is relatively easy and quick, the officer said, adding: “Any platoon can do it.”
The Israeli military said last week that 130 shafts had been destroyed so far, but gave no figure for demolished tunnels.
The tunnels are harder to tackle. The officer said several tons of the exploding gel — on which he declined to give any technical details, other than to say it is brought in by truck — are required for every few hundred meters of tunnel.
After-action analysis is difficult. The officer said around half of the shafts in his Beit Hanoun operation zone had been destroyed, but acknowledged that these can be rebuilt.
“It’s hard to say how many tunnels [are destroyed] because they are all connected,” he said.
Hamas has denied using hospitals as cover for such tunnels. It has dismissed assertions by Israel, backed by the US, that it has a command center under Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, which Israeli forces entered on Wednesday.
EFFORTS TO AVOID ENDANGERING HOSTAGES
Hamas took some 240 people back to Gaza as captives in the Oct. 7 attack in which about 1,200 people were killed, Israel has said. One of a handful of hostages released said she and at least two dozen others had been held in a tunnel.
The army officer said care was being taken not to endanger tunnels that may contain hostages.
“We sometimes get indications that this [a target] might be related to hostages. And then we know not to attack it unless we get an approval [that it is clear],” he said
Like much of northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun has been emptied of civilians, who fled south under orders from Israel as it sent in ground troops to try to wipe out Hamas.
“The only population left is the terrorists,” the officer said, adding that sometimes a secondary explosion set off by a tunnel destruction blast “will bring down a building a few hundred meters away”.
Palestinian terrorists taken captive have provided Israel with intelligence on the tunnel network, he said, but this information has been limited.
“Most of them don’t know about the whole city. But they know their own village, they know pretty well the tunnel system,” the officer said.
The officer said it could take months to destroy Gaza’s entire underground network.
“I think it’s more complicated than the New York City subway,” he said.
The post With Mapping Robots and Blast Gel, Israel Wages War on Hamas Terror Tunnels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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FBI Investigating ‘Targeted Terror Attack’ in Boulder, Colorado, Director Says
FILE PHOTO: FBI Director Kash Patel testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on President Trump’s proposed budget request for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
FBI Director Kash Patel said on Sunday the agency was aware of and fully investigating a targeted terror attack in Boulder, Colorado.
While he did not provide further details, Patel said in a social media post: “Our agents and local law enforcement are on the scene already, and we will share updates as more information becomes available.”
According to CBS News, which cited witnesses at the scene, a suspect attacked people with Molotov cocktails who were participating in a walk to remember the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza.
The Boulder Police Department said it was responding to a report of an attack in the city involving several victims. It has not released further details but a press conference was expected at 4 p.m. Mountain Time (2200 GMT).
The attack comes just weeks after a Chicago-born man was arrested in the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, D.C. Someone opened fire on a group of people leaving an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that fights antisemitism and supports Israel.
The shooting fueled polarization in the United States over the war in Gaza between supporters of Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The post FBI Investigating ‘Targeted Terror Attack’ in Boulder, Colorado, Director Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Terrorist Responsible for Death of 21 Soldiers Eliminated
An Israeli F-35I “Adir” fighter jet. Photo: IDF
i24 News – Khalil Abd al-Nasser Mohammed Khatib, the terrorist who commanded the terrorist cell that killed 21 soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip on January 22, 2024, was killed by an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said on Sunday.
In a joint operation between the military and the Shin Bet security agency, the terrorist was spotted in a reconnaissance mission. The troops called up an aircraft to target him, and he was eliminated.
Khatib planned and took part in many other terrorist plots against Israeli soldiers.
i24NEWS’ Hebrew channel interviewed Dor Almog, the sole survivor of the mass casualty disaster, who was informed on live TV about the death of the commander responsible for the killing his brothers-in-arms.
“I was sure this day would come – I was a soldier and I know what happens at the end,” said Almog. “The IDF will do everything to bring back the abductees and to topple Hamas, to the last one man.”
The post Terrorist Responsible for Death of 21 Soldiers Eliminated first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Stanley Fischer, Former Fed Vice Chair and Bank of Israel Chief, Dies at 81
FILE PHOTO: Vice Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve System Stanley Fischer arrives to hear Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney delivering the Michel Camdessus Central Banking Lecture at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, U.S., September 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
Stanley Fischer, who helped shape modern economic theory during a career that included heading the Bank of Israel and serving as vice chair of the US Federal Reserve, has died at the age of 81.
The Bank of Israel said he died on Saturday night but did not give a cause of death. Fischer was born in Zambia and had dual US-Israeli citizenship.
As an academic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fischer trained many of the people who went on to be top central bankers, including former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as well as Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank president.
Fischer served as chief economist at the World Bank, and first deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund during the Asian financial crisis and was then vice chairman at Citigroup from 2002 to 2005.
During an eight-year stint as Israel’s central bank chief from 2005-2013, Fischer helped the country weather the 2008 global financial crisis with minimal economic damage, elevating Israel’s economy on the global stage, while creating a monetary policy committee to decide on interest rates like in other advanced economies.
He was vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2017 and served as a director at Bank Hapoalim in 2020 and 2021.
Current Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron praised Fischer’s contribution to the Bank of Israel and to advancing Israel’s economy as “truly significant.”
The soft-spoken Fischer – who played a role in Israel’s economic stabilization plan in 1985 during a period of hyperinflation – was chosen by then Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as central bank chief.
Netanyahu, now prime minister, called Fischer a “great Zionist” for leaving the United States and moving to Israel to take on the top job at Israel’s central bank.
“He was an outstanding economist. In the framework of his role as governor, he greatly contributed to the Israeli economy, especially to the return of stability during the global economic crisis,” Netanyahu said, adding that Stanley – as he was known in Israel – proudly represented Israel and its economy worldwide.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also paid tribute.
“He played a huge role in strengthening Israel’s economy, its remarkable resilience, and its strong reputation around the world,” Herzog said. “He was a world-class professional, a man of integrity, with a heart of gold. A true lover of peace.”
The post Stanley Fischer, Former Fed Vice Chair and Bank of Israel Chief, Dies at 81 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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