The IDF said on Wednesday that Hamas has rebuilt some of the capabilities that were damaged during last year's Gaza war, including three new tunnels and a series of weapons manufacturing and storage sites.
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GOC Southern Command released drone footage and coordinates which it said showed tunnels, weapons factories, and arms depots in densely populated civilian areas. It said the installations were near al-Azhar University in Gaza City, a Pepsi factory, and hospitals elsewhere in Gaza.
Other sites included an UNWRA-run school, a medical clinic, a library, and mosques.
"Hamas launches attacks from within population centers and targets population centers – the world must be aware of this crime against humanity and must exact a heavy price from Hamas," Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.
He said Israel would act with "precision and force" to defend its citizens.
Hamas, the radical Islamist group which governs the Gaza Strip, rejected the IDF's information as "pure lies and fabrications."
"These are lies the occupation is circulating to justify its crimes against innocent civilians during the wars it conducted against Gaza," said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem.
"We warn that these lies may be a pretext to commit more crimes against civilians," he said, adding that the IDF published the information "within the framework of the ongoing psychological warfare against the resistance and inciting public opinion against it."
"What the occupation [Israel] failed to achieve in military campaigns, it won't achieve through false publicity. This is slander, nothing more," Qassem said.
The Israeli army tries to prevent civilian casualties and regularly accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields by operating and firing rockets from residential areas.
Human rights groups have accused Israel of failing to do enough to prevent civilian casualties and striking targets with no evident military purpose. Rights groups have also criticized Hamas for aiming rockets at population centers in Israel.
Israel claimed to have inflicted heavy damage on Hamas last year. A military official said Wednesday that more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) of tunnels were destroyed last year.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines, declined to say how much of that network Hamas has rebuilt.
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