(Provides media codes, fixes spelling in paragraph 4)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -On the finish of a kilometer-long, booby-trapped tunnel within the Gaza Strip, Israeli troopers found cramped cells the place the army stated Hamas saved about 20 hostages.
They discovered a holding space, 5 slender rooms behind metallic bars, bogs, mattresses, and even drawings by a baby hostage who was freed throughout a November truce, army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari stated.
No hostages had been there when it was found.
The army launched images from the underground labyrinth and stated it introduced in journalists to doc the tunnel earlier than it was destroyed.
The tunnel entrance, Hagari stated, was in the home of a Hamas member within the southern Gaza metropolis of Khan Younis, the place Israel has been focusing its combat in current weeks towards the Palestinian Islamist group.
“The troopers entered the tunnel the place they encountered terrorists, participating in a battle that ended with the elimination of the terrorists,” Hagari stated.
The tunnel was rigged with blast doorways and explosives, he stated.
“In line with the testimonies we’ve got, about 20 hostages had been held on this tunnel at completely different instances beneath harsh circumstances with out daylight, in dense air with little oxygen, and horrible humidity that makes respiration troublesome,” he stated.
Among the hostages saved there have been freed in the course of the week-long Qatari-mediated truce. Others are among the many greater than 130 captured throughout Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage by southern Israel which might be nonetheless in Gaza.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Enhancing by Angus MacSwan)
At this time Information High Newsmaac
