Katz orders the destruction of Gaza tunnels despite the ceasefire.

Israeli Minister of War Yoav Gallant issued instructions to the army on Friday to destroy all tunnels in the Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire agreement coming into effect on October 10, reflecting the continuation of the Israeli military approach and its contradiction with declared political commitments.

Gallant stated in a post on the "X" platform that he ordered the destruction of the tunnels "down to the last tunnel," adding: "If there are no tunnels, there will be no Hamas," as he put it.

The Israeli minister did not clarify the areas included in the operations or the timeframe for implementing the decision, at a time when the army still controls more than half of the area of the strip after withdrawing to what is known as the yellow line under the recent agreement.

Gallant's statements come amid escalating political and military debate in the Israeli occupation regarding the fate of dozens of Palestinian fighters trapped inside one of the tunnels in Rafah in the southern strip, amid intensive efforts from regional mediators to solidify the ceasefire agreement and prevent its collapse again.

According to Israeli Channel 12, Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir expressed during a meeting of the security cabinet last night his refusal to allow the deportation of the fighters trapped in the tunnels, emphasizing that the crisis must end "either by killing them or by their surrender."

Zamir clarified that surrender, from his perspective, means "coming out in their underwear, blindfolded and handcuffed, to be taken to the detention camp in Sde Teiman."

He also expressed his opposition to moving to the next phase of the prisoner exchange agreement before recovering the bodies of Israeli soldiers held in Gaza, asserting that reconstruction should not begin before the complete disarmament of the strip.

For its part, the newspaper "Maariv" reported that military estimates indicate that the tunnel in Rafah contains between 120 and 150 fighters from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, trapped on the Israeli-controlled side of the "yellow line."

In the same context, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority reported that the army has begun mapping the complex tunnel in Rafah, noting that Tel Aviv refrains from directly attacking it for fear of losing information about Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, who was killed during the battles in Rafah in 2014 and whose remains have been held by Hamas since then.

The yellow line separates the areas controlled by Israeli forces on the eastern side from those that Palestinians are allowed to move in on the western side.

Despite this, repeated reports have documented Israeli violations of the agreement through shelling and gunfire towards civilian areas west of the line, resulting in hundreds of martyrs and wounded, according to statements from Hamas and the government media office in Gaza.

Gallant's recent instructions to destroy the tunnels "down to the last tunnel" coincide with the continuation of Israeli military operations east of the yellow line, including shelling and demolishing infrastructure in adjacent areas.

This decision comes at a time when international and regional mediators are trying to prevent the collapse of the ceasefire agreement that was reached after the genocide committed by the Israeli occupation against Gaza on October 8, 2023, which lasted for two years and resulted in the martyrdom of more than 68,000 Palestinians and the injury of more than 170,000, in addition to the destruction of about 90% of the civilian infrastructure in the strip.