Gaza’s tunnels haunt Israeli military in Rafah, with Jon Elmer

we're going to cover the resistance in Gaza from the uh from the very Southern Point Southeast Rafa all the way to uh the North in jabalia so we'll just show you a map here so people can get a sense the map on the left there that's Rafa and red that's the area well Rafa is all across the bottom of that map the blue is the area where the Israeli uh military has pushed in that is mostly uh not builtup area it's farmfield um and it's of course the Rafa Crossing is now closed um as Nora reported but they're pushing in on the Eastern edge of Rafa and on the map on the right you could see nsar Rim Corridor dividing the Gaza Strip there's reports today that the Americans are going to be attaching the pier at the end of narim corridor in the next 24 hours believe it when I see it uh but that's the plan and then there's fighting in zetune in Gaza City the third invasion of zetune um the Israelis keep saying they win and then they keep having to go back in and fight and um they've been fighting for the last week in zetune they left zetune today and then there's major fighting in jabalia in the camps um and in the city of jabalia on the Eastern edge of jabalia all the way out to the to the border is um Fierce fighting uh that's been happening and this is all in the context I always want to do this before I get into the resistance is just to to underline the humanitarian catastrophe that we're witnessing a half a million people on the move under conditions that are much more difficult than when they moved the first time in October and November when we called it a virtual Death March because of how brutal the March was for people to walk those tens of kilometers um to the new place where they were going to set up in some cases K Yunis and some cases Rafa U but this time we're adding the ruins um they have to move through the ruins the famine that is gripping Gaza just basic things like dehydration and exhaustion make it really difficult to pack up your cloth and wood tent and carry it with your family aged you know 2 to 80 years old um and people are injured there's a a catastrophic level of serious injuries in Gaza more than a 100,000 people um with serious injuries um and so this is just really devastating uh this attack on Rafa and the moving of a million million and a half million point4 people 700,000 children out of Rafa into where the ruins of K Yunis the packed middle camps there where you see darab Bella um there's no room in these places for people to set up this is just a catastrophe um and it's a a systematic genocide that we have been covering uh every day now for that we're into the eighth month Israel carries out 150 air strikes a day right now um tens of thousands of artillery shells and that's the context um within which the resistance takes place so let's look at number one because we watched last week the Israelis mustering On the Border um Kasam hit them with rockets uh mass casualty event at their staging area outside of Rafa um this is IDF footage showing us those tanks that were stationed in that staging area um beginning the move into Rafa interestingly though they have split themselves off the divisions that were uh positioned to go into Rafa only one of the divisions went in um and the other two divisions moved up into the north they moved into zetune and they moved into jabalia so while the US is still talking about the Rafa Invasion as uh separate from what we're seeing in Rafa right now it is possible that what the Israelis are saying the Israelis are saying it's a precise operation a precise raid um rather than the Takeover and attempted occupation of Rafa which would require a force posture that we're not seeing right now from the Israelis that can always change very quickly um that division from Z can move down um but Rafa is a logistically challenging place for Israel to occupy in comparison to the other places in Gaza that they've been fighting so far there's a long border with Egypt it's twice the width more than twice the width of anywhere else in Gaza that stretches supply lines for the Israelis um stretches their supply lines um Rafa is a spread out sprawling um town um and so there's a lot of ground to cover and so here we see these tanks they're moving in U on the Eastern Edge um of Rafa and immediately um we got a flood of resistance reports 30 resistance reports on the first day that's more reports than at any time since December when there was a fullscale war all over the Gaza Strip and every day since then the number has increased um and so the resistance is showing the Capac capity uh to not only continue to fight but actually to escalate that fight and each day escalate from the day before let alone escalating from the seven months of ground war that we've been witnessing um so those are important things to point out because as soon as these tanks uh arrived we see a fighter here emerging from a tunnel uh right in the area that we saw those tanks we see a ner Troop Carrier that doesn't have an active protection trophy system to to Def uh to defend itself and you see a Yasin strike from a a Kasam shooter who emerges from the ground and hits directly on The Troop Carrier um this is these kind of tunnel operations we're going to see them throughout this show and it's one of the reasons why when the war started the Israelis said there was 500 kilometers of tunnels um and then as the war carried on they said there was 700 kilometers of tunnels and now I heard on the BBC the F said yesterday that there's a thousand kilometers of tunnels because these tunnels are in their nightmares everywhere they go Fighters pop up can hit them and then return to their bases safely these are not murdered omissions as I've pointed out throughout this war um these operations are carried out by fighters who are returning to their bases with the skill set with the experience um to carry on the fight um and we're seeing that uh we've seen that all through the war so we'll just watch this one one last okay we'll go we'll go to this one because there's so many today guys we have to keep them moving um so this is in Rafa we're going to watch uh a cameraman and a shooter uh moving through uh their neighborhood the the Rafa Brigade has been waiting for seven months for this battle they're prepared for it they know the area they know the terrain they can set up minefields they can set up Frontline defenses um they can set up shooting positions like this this is their neighborhood they know the landscape um and that is an A major advantage for the gorillas at all times this is a um this is a tank being hit with apparently has a uh command flag on that tent Poss on that on that tank you could see it at the top um of of that one so you could see them just moving through again carefully moving through the undergrowth uh tight to the build buildings we're still seeing um careful Fighters being extremely careful of the Drone um the drones that are in the air constantly um and knowing the landscape in their own neighborhoods allows them to get around to get shots like this at a distance there that we watched it hit that Namer Troop Carrier from a distance that's too close for the active protection system to properly kick in so this is the third one against the tank and you can see that's often that flag is a command flag um or some sort of flag uh signaling um a lead tank in a convoy um and then you see the fighter return to his base through the tunnel at the end of that clip there so if we go to number two um this is a Kasam fighter in a tunnel here he they're going to fire on this troop position the Israelis move into the troop position Kasam has surveillance right on top of them literally in the next building the Israelis believe that building is safe and they get a thermobaric warhead from a Yasin uh targeting them this fighter says he salutes his commanders and he says we say to Netanyahu who promises to enter Rafa we are here waiting for you preparing for you many varieties of your death this is just the tip of the iceberg a short while ago we hit a special force Squad in a building the one we just saw and now we will hit a marava tank and here they go as promised hitting the marava tank that's actually a n Troop Carrier but he could be forgiven for that um but just like he said just like he said in the tunnel uh calling is shot um and this is the first day that the Israelis are inside Rafa uh feeling the resistance in Rafa that has been laying in waight for them for seven months uh for this battle if we go to number four we have a variety of as he said a variety of death options um this is Kasam uh machine gun fire at a another Israeli true position that's right across the street so they have surveillance on the building right across the street um and we could see machine gun fire we pull out the audio always uh of these videos but uh heavy machine gun fire um which is something we haven't actually seen tons of in these videos the videos U often take um we we we see sniper rifles but this kind of small arms fire and PK machine gun fire um isn't something we see all the time so it's interesting to see it in Rafa in the first stages of the battle because these are obviously fighting positions that they knew the Israelis were going to come into um and they have all different types of operations prepared for them uh in these areas you can see the the emptying of the clip there in number six we're watching a mortar team here operating um and this fighter also has a message he's got his hand on his heart and he says from under the bullets and the sounds of planes and cannons we send two messages a message of a threat and a message of steadfastness the message of a threat is to Netanyahu and his forces as for the message of steadfastness it is to our people our loved ones to our nation who are displaced from their homes and suffering hardships my message to you is to be steadfast to be patient and persevere because as you sacrifice we also sacrifice in the name of the Homeland this is them saying what they've said throughout the war that we fight in the same trench as our people um and he's very eloquently making this point while under drone uh surveillance getting ready to launch um his Kasam makes three mortars 60 mm 81 mm and 120 mm mortars he looks like he's got 881 mm meter mortars there um but sending a message to his people something that we see in these videos and I always pull the videos where they have these messages um to their people because I think that it shows uh the many layers of complexity of the National Liberation struggle um they obviously make these statements for a reason and so um although uh the mortar teams get sort of short shrift in these video reports because uh there's a lot of them and uh all you can really see them do is load it and fire um and so whenever there is more reports from the field uh I always cut the mortar teams uh out of them and the rocket teams out of them and as I've said before I'll have to uh apologize to the artillery units because they're the core part of this battle uh all throughout they have been since the year 2000 when these mortar teams were critical to the anti- settlement uh strategy that Kasam carried out to attack with mortars uh the Israeli settlements inside Gaza and Israeli Army positions inside Gaza um in order to ultimately drive them out of Gaza in 2005 as the Israelis uh did the so-called disengagement where they uprooted their settlements and pulled their settlers and soldiers out of Gaza so that was seven mortar teams right there operating and uh a few hours later the IDF acknowledged eight casualties from mortar fire on the Rafa Crossing where the Israelis are blocking the crossing uh to yahalom Special Forces soldiers were killed in those mortar attacks and now we have the one everyone was waiting for I think this is number 37 here tomorrow we're watching an unbelievable complex Ambush here we're watching three Fighters emerge from a tunnel in the middle of an idaf base where they believe that they're safe where seeing two shaah efps explosively form penetrators devastating anti-tank weapons we're watching him come out of the tunnel 10 feet away from the tank um picks up his shawah carries it directly to the tank now they're showing us the second fighter emerging from the same tunnel with his shawah and watch this you can see an Israeli soldier right there so he walks in behind the soldier and then he's right there at the back door of the marava tank and you can see the distance that he places it at he's placing it at that distance so that the shape charge of the explosively formed penetrator has time to fully form and hit so he's what we're watching is brave but we're watching something that is complex it's tight it's precise um and it's executed uh perfectly by the fighters so yes it's Brave a lot of comments about uh various body parts of Steel these guys have um but really if you watch this operation when we when it Loops back around that's the medac helicopter taking them wounded away um everybody's wounded the Israelis never say anyone dies um but watch this they come out of the of the tunnel in the middle of the base one guy goes exactly he knows exactly where he's going he's not putting this in some random spot he's not pointing it at the tank in any different place he knows when he emerges from this tunnel that he is going to go to the back door of the first marava tank the second shaav carrier he's aiming it at the armored personnel carrier you can see him there he just got up from the tunnel and he's picking up the device he walks it directly to the back door he doesn't place it on the side where there's also vulnerabilities the weakest point of the armor on the tank is the back door it's also where the soldiers are inside you blow that door off and you have a crew of four and probably four other infantry soldiers in the tank at any given time and then you see a third guy who comes up with a yassine5 and fires it at The nammer Troop Carrier on the other side each person knows when they come up that tunnel what what move what decision where they're going um we'll watch it one more time just uh because there's so many things to point out in this you can watch on this next time through the the ability to get up through this tunnel that tunnel is dug despite the fact that the Israelis have tilled that soil uh turned it all up believing that they have covered over uh and can put their vehicles there because they've buried the tunnels but it's actually the opposite they loosen the till and it makes it easier for the fighters to emerge uh from their tunnel spot the tunnels have uh offensive tunnels defensive tunnels strategic tunnels Logistics tunnels the difference of them is by closing a door um and so when these Fighters we'll watch let's focus now on their return to the tunnel because these Fighters are again returning to their base safely so he sets the device pulls the pin there he's got something like six seconds um we took out the audio but it goes off um the second guy pulls his the third shooter comes out and then all three of them pile down into the tunnel and there they are walking away under the tunnel and you can hear in the audio of this video If you go to my Twitter account the full videos are there um you can hear the audio in the video you can hear the second shaah explode as they're underneath the ground getting away safely again Fighters returning to their base safely let's just do it one more time because it's because it's our show so there's the first shaah there's the second shaah the fighters emerge from the tunnel as if it's easy to do it's not they have to get up climb up out of the land they have to be not be seen you'll notice that Kasam puts the good guys in green and the red triangles so you see the good guys there in green we'll see that throughout this I mean we've seen it throughout the war but particularly there the bad guys are red uh that Soldier oblivious to what's going on it's surely killed by the second sh um you can see the distance from the back door that's the perfect distance uh for Maximum Destruction from that device the shawat is a explosively formed penetrator that has been built by the cassam Bri Gades and developed over uh 25 years um there's something like 50 versions of them to they perfected to the point that they are now um and so that tunnel operation um is really remarkable and those kind of tunnel operations are why the IDF went from saying there was 500 tunnels kilometers of tunnels to 750 to a th000 and in their nightmares there's 2,000 kilometers of tunnels in their nightmares um so let's go to 38 here tomorrow because there's more from Rafa um so you're watching here an elevated shooter you can watch the Yassin Warhead travel in this shot if you watch the left side of the screen here you can see it uh Cam's going to show it to you in a freeze frame um okay so here the fighter is in the these Fighters are under a building they're under a building so they're below ground they're climbing up the tunnel to the main floor and then they're climbing the stairs in order to get an elevated firing position it's this one where you can see the Warhead I mixed them up you'll see the Warhead flying through the air from the elevated position on this one there it is there green for the good guys again they Point their green um so what you have is a three-dimensional attack here fighters who are down under the ground protected um coming up to the first floor to the surface level and passing on the surface level because it's more militarily effective to fire on an elevated firing position so you're seeing Kasam in just this attack use three dimensions on the battlefield something that we've talked about throughout this war that they do they're able to move between buildings with the tunnel Network that they have built and in especially in Rafa in a place um like that has been waiting for these months for this battle um they can use these tunnels and the destruction like just look at the destruction right Rafa has been subjected to attack for this entire War even though it's called in the BBC a safe zone or whatever we all know it's not Dr howed talked about how it's not that clearly not that um we'll let we'll let this one go one more time because you can watch just just how significant it is military colleges will study this kind of warfare because we're watching Fighters come from below ground um and then end up above ground and so you effectively are firing from the position of where an aircraft would be um in terms of uh below surface surface level and firing from the air and you can see the way the elevated firing position in this video you can see how it provides you the angle uh to come down on top of the armored vehicle that is uh roughly hidden the that vehicle believes that that's a tank that it believes that it's hidden behind that um and if they were firing from the ground level it would be hidden but they go from the tunnel climb up past the first floor into the upper floors and are firing from the upper floors here they're using the Alleyways um and ruins which is something that they of course have always been doing in this battle U the Israelis wanting Destruction has no military purpose it's military vandalism um and it makes it easier for the fighters to move it gives them more concealment it actually hides their tunnels because it's dropping the entire building down on top of the tunnel which makes it difficult for Israel to go find the tunnel which they basically stopped doing in December um but uh here this video here where in the tunnel with the Fighters This is a fighter holding a Detonator um where he's going to uh detonate the tunnel entrance um here and he says and then so then they detonate the entrance where the soldiers are and they go down the the tunnel and they find uh they see the fighter says they sent their robots into the tunnel and here it is in our hands so what would happen if they sent their soldiers so this is Kasam holding uh an explosive or uh explosive ordinance disposal uh robot a bomb disposal robot that's supposed to uh deactivate um explosives um You probably seen them above ground they often have guns on them that uh try to neutralize the explosion not sure what this this one has um but detonating the tunnel entrance so the tunnels are used for offensive reasons when they use it to climb the stairs to get to the top floor um they use it to pop out and put shaah devices right beside a tank um and here they're using the tunnel to lure the Israeli Force into the tunnel and blow up part of the tunnel and the P the way the tunnel network works it's like a spiderweb so you block one if you you can turn a an attack tunnel into a a mass casualty event by blowing up a piece of the tunnel but they have those thick heavy doors that we've seen throughout the war they close those heavy doors and you're just blowing up one section of a spiderweb you're not destroying the tunnel so the tunnels can be used in these ways the Israelis haven't even got to mapping this kind of thing yet so we don't know for sure exactly how detailed it is but we've watched them do these kind of attacks where they turn an offensive tunnel into a mass casualty by blowing up the entrance and you don't lose that tunnel by blowing up the entrance because you have a spider web that you can access the other uh channels of the tunnel through various different uh ways like a spider web um so that's Rafa uh Rafa uh there's more videos from today that we'll show you next week but that's the last three days in Rafa um and those were pretty remarkable videos even having covered these videos throughout the war um those videos were remarkable hi for watching this video please subscribe to our YouTube channel hit like leave a comment these 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