IDF completes year-long effort to destroy southern Gaza terror tunnel route

The Israel Defense Forces has completed a year-long operation to demolish a 2.5-mile long tunnel east of the Yellow Line in southern Gaza, where the IDF remains deployed under the U.S.-brokered truce deal, the military said on Sunday.

The 7th Brigade’s combat team, operating under the command of the Gaza Division, worked together with the IDF’s elite Yahalom combat engineering unit to destroy the tunnel, which contained sleeping quarters and arms depots, according to the statement.

The Yellow Line is a demarcation established by the IDF as part of the U.S.-brokered truce deal with Hamas that went into effect in October.

Concrete barriers topped with a yellow-painted post mark the area to which the IDF has withdrawn. The Yellow Line leaves Jerusalem in control of approximately half of the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The IDF remains “deployed in the area in accordance with the ceasefire outline and continues to act to remove any immediate threat,” it stated.

Last week, following an exchange of fire in which six terrorists were killed, troops found combat equipment and weapons, including explosives, ammunition and instructions for preparing bombs.

During additional raids, the soldiers located five “inactive” rocket launchers and several weapons, according to Sunday’s statement.

Washington’s ceasefire proposal stipulated that its second phase, which includes the demilitarization of Gaza along with reconstruction, would commence only after all hostages, living and dead, return to Israel.

The truce went into effect on Oct. 10, after which over the course of several weeks all the remaining abductees returned home, except for the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed and whose body was taken hostage by terrorists during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.

Gvili’s family raised concerns over the weekend amid reports that U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Board of Peace member Jared Kushner were pressuring Jerusalem into opening the Rafah Crossing with Egypt.

“Pressure should not be on the Israeli government to continue fulfilling its part of the deal while Hamas deceives the entire world and refuses to return the last hostage in accordance with the agreement it signed,” according to a statement put out by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

© JNS