CAVE OF DEATH
Israel finds biggest ever underground Hamas rocket factory protected by human shields beneath civilian evacuation road
Hidden in the middle of Gaza, the IDF described it as a 'terror stronghold of weapons production'
ISRAELI forces said they have discovered what could be Hamas' biggest rocket factory, hidden underground beneath a civilian evacuation road and protected by human shields.
The workshops would be where terrorists were said to produce long-range missiles capable of hitting targets in northern Israel.
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They also reportedly created replicas or adaptations of standard weaponry such as mortar shells, the IDF claims.
The terror factories were said to be connected through underground shafts to a tunnel network used to transport the weapons to fighting units throughout the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Israeli troops led a group of reporters to the spot in the Bureij neighbourhood, located in the middle of the coastal enclave.
Multiple sites along and beneath the Salah a-Din main highway were said to be used by Hamas to manufacture rocket fuel, explosives, projectiles’ bodies, and store them dangerously close to civilians.
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Salah a-Din had been declared by the IDF as a humanitarian route for Palestinians to flee from northern Gaza to its south during the early stages of the war.
A variety of metal tubes and components as well as shell casings were stacked in an overground workshop area, while long metal racks holding missiles could be seen elsewhere, with an elevator leading down into the tunnel.
The IDF says it is the largest Hamas weapons production site discovered so far.
"...From the elevator, they contain the rockets in a place which is safe and then it goes down to other areas inside the tunnel system," IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.
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"In one place you make the rockets, another place you launch," he said.
Col. Or Vollozinsky, the commander of the 188th Brigade, said the area was “a chain of terror factories… on the main road, and under the homes of civilians.”
Around a dozen tunnel entrances were found in the area, along with the headquarters of Hamas’s al-Bureij Battalion, which Vollozinsky’s forces recently captured.
Soldiers said they found what appeared to be a waiting room with couches and a bathroom in a seemingly standard building in the neighbourhood, reports.
They also discovered a stairway leading down into a tunnel in the room next door.
Going down some 65ft into the tunnel, forces found a large chemicals lab used to manufacture explosives and rocket engines, Vollozinsky said.
Vollozinsky, pointing to a container holding a chemical used by Hamas to make rocket fuel, claimed troops discovered hundreds of identical bags inside the underground lab, where Hamas built "a lot of explosives for the rockets for flight into Israel."
He stated that the underground lab was connected to other tunnels uncovered in the the area, adding that the facility was most likely created over several years.
“To build such a factory takes a lot of time; [Hamas] managed to maintain this achievement for a long time,” Vollozinsky said.
Reporters then toured another warehouse with several lathes and other heavy machinery, used by Hamas to build the long-range missiles, as well as other munitions, including mortars and explosive devices.
Another tunnel shaft was located inside the terror factory, this one much deeper and with an elevator.
The IDF said the tunnel connected to a large underground network, used by Hamas to distribute its weapons to all areas of the Gaza Strip.
The final location that the IDF allowed reporters to visit was an above-ground and underground long-range rocket arsenal, where fully assembled rockets were housed.
Inside the building, several rockets with ranges of 120 kilometres (75 miles) — enough to reach all of central Israel — were discovered stockpiled.
A large tunnel entrance was adjacent to the rockets, which military sources stated was to allow the massive rockets to be kept beneath the ground.
Col. Yair Palai, commander of the Golani Brigade, whose forces were involved in unearthing Hamas rocket production facilities, stated that the IDF was already in the process of eliminating all of the sites.
“You can see here the importance of the [ground] maneuver,” Palai said.
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“This is something you need to reach, to enter, understand what is going on, and blow it up completely, make sure nothing is left — not a rocket that can reach [Kibbutz] Kfar Aza [near the Gaza border], and not a rocket that can reach Tel Aviv or any other place.”
Palai said there still may be rocket fire at Israel even as troops defeat Hamas battalions, “but us arriving here, dealing with these lathes, weapons factories, and destroying them is critically important.”
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