It is easy to see that the dirt field and ruins located at the edge of the Al-Bureij refugee camp, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, was once a densely populated residential neighborhood. Here a withered lawn, there a few chickens pecking indifferently among armored vehicles.
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But inside a small, unassuming building, fighters from the 188th Brigade uncovered, in the heart of a neighborhood normally teeming with civilians, lies what was once a bustling munitions facility. Inside the building, next to a comfortable, air-conditioned room, there was an entrance leading down into a tunnel dug 30 meters (about 90 ft.) deep. The very entry into the shaft causes immediate eye irritation due to the chemicals used by Hamas terrorists to produce large quantities of explosive material for rockets, mortars, and IEDs.
Video: The Hamas rocket manufacturing site / IDF Spokesperson's Unit
"This was the commanders' entrance," says Col. Or Wolozhinsky as he displays the chemical protection suit used by the terrorists. "They would come every morning to this building, like workers to a regular office, drink coffee, cool off in the A/C, and then go down below where they produced explosive material for missiles fired at Israel."
Wolozhinsky explains that the location of the underground plant is no coincidence. "The facility was situated near Salah al-Din Road, a humanitarian corridor that Israel refrained from attacking during fighting even beforehand," says the commander, as we pass by the tunnel entrance.
Missiles to Northern Israel
Fighters from the 36th Division, guided by intelligence, succeeded in exposing the enormous scale of Hamas' military industry in the central Strip camps area in recent weeks. Inside the Al-Mawasi neighborhood, a Golani force exposed a veritable missile production plant, just meters from Salah al-Din Road, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans passed on their way south.
In a large industrial shed, the soldiers show dozens of industrial melting, molding, and engraving machines for metal. Large baskets there contain tens of thousands of unassembled mortar shells, with fuses nearby. At the far end of the shed, there is a large shaft with an elevator. Most production was done underground, where the finished products of terror were readied for shipment.
In an adjacent structure are dozens of long-range missiles nearly ready for use, lacking only the warhead and camouflage paint. This building too has a huge shaft leading to an underground production space. "The room below is huge. Only finished products did they bring above ground in order to transfer to the launch pits," says Lt. Col. Ohad Moyal, commander of the Golani reconnaissance battalion.
The terrorists did not relinquish the expansive industrial complex easily. "We saw hard fighting here. They shot, blew up shafts, and set ambushes. Ultimately they don't have the capacity to stand against a force like ours over time, but they continued producing weapons up till the last moment, just as we were meters away from them," says Moyal.
A cursory examination of the compound itself shows why all of Israel's air power did not suffice to paralyze Hamas' industry of terror and death. Huge bomb craters gape on the grounds from IAF strikes preceding the ground offensive. But despite the heavy bombardment, which likely damaged certain infrastructures and even missile launch pits, nearby plants, in civilian buildings, and underground, continued churning out thousands of mortar shells and rockets. "Production at this facility could only be stopped as we did, from the ground, meter after meter, shed after shed," says Moyal as we pass by a blast crater nearby.
The cruelty in Hamas' design
Exiting one of the compound's buildings, Salah al-Din Road is clearly visible. A civilian building situated right on the road itself was damaged in the fighting, with a hole breached in the wall. Through the hole, a clothing store is clearly visible. Neat rows of hangars and women's dresses appear through the dusty air of the ruined refugee camp. In an adjacent building is the local headquarters of a cellphone company. The upper floors evidently served for residence.
The Hamas "Military Production" plant did not operate behind fences, but right in a neighborhood where civilians lived daily life. Chilling evidence of Hamas waging battle among Gaza's population and its factories of death. The terror effort was attached to civilian society's buildings in order to try preventing harm to its facilities, or exact so heavy a civilian toll as to compel Israel to halt the operation.
This linkage between terror infrastructure and the local populace forced the IDF to operate meticulously and carefully, and the fear of terrorists remaining in shafts or explosives still detonating sometimes sends random spurts of gunfire echoing sporadically. Forces in the field still have much work ahead dismantling infrastructure so it cannot serve Hamas again. It took Hamas years to build its subterranean plants and huge workshops, including the tunneling infrastructure connecting them. Now the fate of these facilities is to disappear in the blink of an eye.
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