GAZA — Despite the US-facilitated ceasefire between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas that has been in effect since October, Israeli officials report ongoing breaches “on a daily basis.”
“We observe them testing our defenses and launching attacks each week… [Hamas] has inflicted casualties on our soldiers since the ceasefire commenced,” IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani shared with The Post from a military post in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Amid the backdrop of intermittent gunfire and the noise of an IDF drilling machine working on a newly identified Hamas tunnel near a military installation, another IDF representative commented, “There have been incidents of shooting here over the past two weeks.”
Following the optimistic reception of President Trump’s 20-point peace proposal, Israel has reestablished its presence in the region to maintain security and ensure compliance with the ceasefire conditions. The president plans to visit the area on February 19.
The IDF is preparing to conduct operations in the Gaza Strip, including the city of Deir al-Balah, should Hamas fail to disarm, The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.
The decision to authorize military actions beyond the designated yellow line, which demarcates the 53% of Gaza under IDF control from the area governed by Hamas, rests with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The second core part of Trumpâs cease-fire involves the dismantlement of Hamasâ military and weapons arsenal.
âGaza will be a terror-free zone,â said Shoshani about the next step in the peace plan. Shoshani claimed there are âthousands of Hamas fightersâ in Deir al-Balah.
He compared the terror groupâs vast underground tunnel system to âa spiderâs webâ that is âmaybe the worldâs largest terror tunnel structure in history.â
The tunnels have been known about for decades, but the full scope only began to be revealed during the Israel-Hamas war following the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.
The IDF spokesman said, âWe are finding tunnels every weekâ on the Israeli side of the yellow line. A significant part of the tunnel system in territory controlled by Hamas is still believed to be operating.Â
The IDF is working at a breakneck speed to fill tunnels it finds with cement or blow them up to ensure they are no longer usable.
IDF officials have stressed that Hamas is not disarming and has explicitly violated their pledge to hand over its weapons.
Shoshani said: âIt is very clear that Hamas does not want to disarm. We have the tools to make them disarm, even though they committed to it.â
Just this week, Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Norwayâs public broadcaster NRK that the terrorist organization will not disarm, declaring âthe resistance will be continued.â
Hamdan also falsely claimed Israel itself carried out the massacre at the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, according to JNS.
The Hamas official flatly rejected the Hamas invasion of Israel, which resulted in the murder of more than 1,200 people and 251 hostages taken, even though it was exhaustively documented.
From the view of the military outpost, the group of foreign journalists embedded with the IDF can see yellow blocks are blanketed across a former agricultural field in Deir al-Balah to demarcate the yellow line that bars Palestinians from entering the Israeli-controlled section of Gaza.
The entry point into central Gaza is called Kissufim, which is named after Kibbutz Kissufim, and borders Deir al-Balah. The IDF says 4,200 trucks of humanitarian aid enter Gaza via the Kissufim crossing every week.
With Israelis drones hovering over the IDF military outpost to spot Hamas attackers, signs of Palestinian activities can be discerned in Deir al-Balah: A light in a house and smoke arising from a building.
According to Reuters, Trump is slated to announce during his visit that several countries will supply thousands of troops to act as part of a stabilization force in Gaza.
The question for Israeli forces is whether those troops will fare any better at getting Hamas to disarm, as agreed to in the peace plan.
