Hamas’ Gaza smuggling tunnels may soon have the capability to smuggle long range missles and rockets into Gaza in one piece, according to a senior IDF official who spoke with the Jerusalem Post.

The terrorist group’s operatives and contractors would need to widen new tunnels or old ones that weren’t destroyed during Israel’s recent Operation Cast Lead campaign.

The U.S. State Department’s chief spokesman said Obama’s administration will spend the majority of some $900 million in aid promised to the Palestinian Authority for use in the West Bank.


Robert Wood, the State Department spokesman, said that Palestinians in the Hamas-led Gaza will not see the aid, according to a new report in the Los Angeles Times.

“We cannot funnel money through Hamas,” Wood said over the weekend.

The Israeli Air Force hit five (5) smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, a rocket launch site, a Hamas outpost, according to the IDF.


The IAF hit the targets after a Grad missile from the Gaza Strip hit the Israeli port city of Ashkelon. The Hamas facility targeted was in Abassan village (inset) just east of Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

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Israel hit Hamas targets in Gaza on Sunday, including some of the terrorist group’s security caravans in the central Gaza village of al-Mughraqa (see map below):

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According to Haaretz, the caravans served as Hamas’ security headquarters.


The IDF says that the attack on Hamas was a response to “the barrage of Qassam rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel today, which wounded an Israeli civilian and two IDF soldiers.”

Also hit were Hamas smuggling tunnels coming from Egypt into Gaza. Last year, Hamas reportedly took in $20 million U.S. dollars per month from Gaza tunnel smuggling operations.

A Japanese reporter and his cameraman shot this video of a Gaza smuggling tunnel operation between Rafah and Egypt: