Terror group official says tunnel in deadly collapse was same passageway used in capture of Oron Shaul during 2014 war
The Hamas terror group on Sunday raised the prospect of exchanging the bodies of one or two Israeli soldiers declared dead in the territory’s 2014 war in return for Palestinian prisoners.
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s military arm, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said that “the resistance has… cards in its hands that will force the enemy to release you,” referring to prisoners in Israeli jail.
Israeli soldiers, dead or alive, have in the past proved valuable bargaining chips to Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups.
The bodies of two soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, are believed to be held by Hamas, which has not clarified their fate. IDF medical and rabbinical officials declared both of them dead, based on evidence collected from the scene.
On Friday, Hamas’s Gaza chief Ismail Haniyeh said Qassam Brigades were preparing “for any future clashes with the Zionist enemy,” including by building tunnels on the border with Israel.
He said a collapsed tunnel that killed seven Gazans last week was like the one used to capture Shaul.
The tunnels were “strategic weapons” against Israel, Haniyeh said, adding that Hamas fighters were also training and acquiring “all the means to fight and resist.”
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Haya drove the point home on Sunday.
“The tunnel in which our seven martyrs died is the same one that was used by Qassam to capture the soldier Oron Shaul,” he said.
Israel has accused Hamas of rebuilding tunnels destroyed during the 2014 war with the aim of launching fresh attacks against it.
The 50-day war in July-August 2014 killed 2,200 Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli side, and it destroyed or damaged thousands of homes in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israel said some half of the Palestinian casualties were fighters, and blamed civilian deaths on Hamas’s placement of military infrastructure in residential areas.
Shaul was with six other soldiers in an armored personal carrier in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya when they came under attack in July 20, 2014. All seven soldiers were declared dead, including Shaul, whose body was captured by Hamas fighters.
On August 1, Hadar Goldin was captured during a surprise attack by Hamas fighters, breaking a truce called earlier that day. His body was taken through a tunnel and he was later declared dead.
The tunnels have been used in the past to store weapons or stage attacks.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas against any attempt to attack his country.
“We are systematically preparing for all threats — including from Hamas,” he said.
“If we’re attacked through tunnels from the Gaza Strip, we’ll act very forcefully against Hamas, with far much greater force” than two years ago.
“I hope we won’t need them, but our abilities — both defensive and offensive — are developing rapidly, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone try them,” he said in a speech to Israeli diplomats.
As reported by The Times of Israel