NEGEV DESERT
Alarge screen dominates a tent at the edge of a military base in the Negev Desert. Dozens of blue squares represent Israeli troops on the ground, 20km away, north-east of Gaza city. Inside the headquarters of one of the infantry brigades of the Israel Defence Forces (idf), operations officers co-ordinate search-and-destroy missions of Hamas tunnels from afar.
Two weeks after the launch of its ground offensive inside the Gaza Strip, Israel has around four divisions (somewhere around 10,000 troops) in the territory. Some of the columns are making their way into the centre of Gaza city. Others are operating in the outlying towns, which are now mostly empty, going from house to house, searching for more tunnel openings. “This will be our only opportunity to finish off as much of Hamas’s underground network as we can,” says one of the officers, referring to the group’s 500km-long tunnel system. “We don’t know how long we have to operate and we need to make the most of it while we can.”
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