The Israel Defense Forces held a large-scale drill near the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, improving preparedness for possible cross-border terrorist attacks from the coastal enclave.
The drill, which was led by the military’s Gaza division and included the evacuation of an Israeli school near the Gaza border, tested how the army would respond to terrorist infiltrators who threatened Israeli communities or military installations in the area.
“It simulates a number of scenarios where the division would have to go from ‘routine’ to ’emergency,'” an army official told The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity.
One of the scenarios that the exercise dealt with, an attack carried out by terrorists on motorbikes, recalled an incident during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, the Iran-backed Islamist group that controls Gaza. At the time, the IDF discovered that Hamas stored motorcycles in a cross-border tunnel, which the military believed were meant to be used in kidnappings.
The eleven-hour exercise took place in Israeli kibbutzim situated along the border with Gaza and included hundreds of army soldiers, as well as local government officials, police officers, and air force and navy personnel.
The drill was part of regularly scheduled training, and not in response to any specific incident or threats in the south, according to the military. It came days after sources in Gaza said that Hamas held its own war games, including firing rockets towards the Mediterranean Sea in what appeared to be preparation for a future conflict with Israel.
Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, formerly the head of the research division of Israeli military intelligence and later the director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, told reporters earlier this year that Hamas’ ongoing investment in its tunnel infrastructure was a sign that the group is preparing for another war against Israel. “They definitely invest a lot in making the necessary preparations so that in the next round, when they decide to start it, they will be able to inflict the heaviest damage on Israel, including through those tunnels,” he said.
Hamas spends an estimated $40 million of its $100 million military budget on building tunnels into Israel that can be used in future terrorist attacks. In July, an Israeli official estimated that Hamas digs some six miles of tunnels every month.
In September, Israel began constructing a $530 million underground barrier along its border with Gaza to prevent more Hamas tunnels from breaching Israeli territory. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eisenkot described the barrier as “the largest project” ever undertaken in Israel’s military history.
[Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit ]