While hunting for three abducted teenagers throughout the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces has uncovered dozens of tunnels believed to be used by terrorists.

Some of the tunnels were found by soldiers inside the homes of Palestinians, under large pieces of furniture and laundry machines. According to one senior officer in the engineering corps, the IDF had no prior intelligence reports regarding the tunnels.

Using their specialized equipment, Yahalom (diamond in Hebrew) forces participated in dozens of raids on the homes of Palestinian activists across the West Bank, confiscating caches of weapons and explosives.

The unit’s forces discovered close to 20 laboratories for manufacturing improvised explosives devices hidden in homes they searched. “We would arrive at a suspicious hope and find a family living on the first floor and a laboratory with explosives on the third floor,” said a senior officer in the unit.

The ongoing use of tunnels by terrorists in Gaza has been well documented with both Israeli and Egyptian forces clamping down as much as they can. However, the task is difficult when tunnels are dug from people’s homes and even from mosques.

Meanwhile the hunt for the boys abducted on June 12 continues in earnest, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Jerusalem audience on June 22.

We are doing everything in our power to get them back safely to their homes. We don’t like challenges. Israel is the most challenged nation on Earth.

[Photo: IDF / Wiki Commons]