Israel says he instructed army ‘to destroy all Gaza tunnels’

The Israeli defense minister said on Friday that he instructed the army "to destroy all tunnels in the Gaza Strip."

"Up to the last tunnel. I have instructed the army to destroy and obliterate all the tunnels in Gaza," Israel Katz wrote on the US social media company X.

"If there are no tunnels, there is no Hamas," he claimed but did not specify where the tunnels are.

His remarks come despite a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, which took effect on Oct. 10.

Earlier on Thursday, Katz declared the border area with Egypt a closed military zone, citing security concerns.

"We are declaring war. Anyone who enters the restricted area will be harmed," Katz said during a discussion late Wednesday, as cited by the public broadcaster KAN.

Army Radio said the defense minister agreed with the Shin Bet chief David Zinni to classify alleged attempts to smuggle weapons through the border with Egypt as a "terrorist threat" to help the security services "to use appropriate tools to combat it."

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the defense minister ordered "to hit any unauthorized entity that infiltrates the forbidden area."

The daily claimed that the decision came after what it called "massive weapons smuggling operations" along the border.

Egypt had previously dismissed Israeli claims about the existence of tunnels beneath the border area with the enclave.

For more than two years, the Israeli army has carried out extensive attacks across Gaza, claiming to target Hamas infrastructure, including its network of underground tunnels.