40 Smuggling Tunnels Hit in Gaza

Israel air force pummels Hamas forces, blows up 40 Philadelphi tunnels
DEBKAfile Special Report
December 28, 2008, 6:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile's military sources report that Hamas kept a reserve fighting force in and around the smuggling tunnels they dug under the Philadelphi strip of border land between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai. The Israeli air force struck 40 tunnels, including bunkers packed with explosives, in this key pocket Sunday, Dec. 28, on Day 2 of the Israeli air offensive against Gaza, triggering secondary blasts and severing the link to Sinai and the Egyptian units manning the border.

This was the second major Israeli air force operation after destroying hundreds of Hamas military sites Saturday. Palestinian losses stand now at over 280 dead, most of them Hamas fighting men.

A crowd of Palestinians trying to flee the Gaza Strip were stopped by heavy machine gun fire from Egyptian forces.

To the north of the embattled enclave, a Palestinian Qassam missile exploded near the Israeli armored units massing outside the Gaza Strip border fence. No one was hurt. In the last two days, Israel has called up 6,500 reservists for the Gaza operation.

So far Sunday, 19 Qassam missiles and Grad rockets were fired from Gaza. Their radius has been extended to nearly 40 km by the new Iran-made Grad Katyushas. Two civilians were injured by one of the four which hit Ashkelon and there were several shock victims.

Chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi reported to the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that the first wave of air strikes in Gaza Saturday destroyed 50 percent of the "missile pits" which Hamas had scattered around the territory. This would explain why far less launches than expected have ensued from Israel's Gaza operation.