The foiling of a Hamas plot to launch a major attack on Israel during Rosh Hashanah is nothing short of a miracle, according to Gidi Grinstein, founder of the Reut Institute and an advocate for Israeli security.
It "is almost a miracle for us. Just imagine that the United States of America would've been able to identify the plot to do the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center just before it happened. This is what happened to us,'' Grinstein said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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Security sources told
NRG that the terror group, a sworn enemy of Israel, planned to use its complex system of tunnels under the Israel-Gaza border to send hundreds of terrorists to western Negev towns to kidnap and murder as many Israelis as possible.
The plan was uncovered in time and stopped by an Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza.
"Hamas was preparing the infrastructure for a huge, unprecedented terrorist attack. They were preparing the capability to take over entire communities in the southern area of Israel and perhaps go even deeper into Israel," Grinstein said.
"We are talking about a capability to bring in dozens and dozens of terrorists under the patrol lines, under the fence, straight into the communities. There were attack tunnels that went under schools, under homes in these communities.
"What we are seeing is a lot of people actually believe that this is a miracle that happened to us.''
Just how Hamas has been able to develop the series of intricate tunnels under the watch of strict Israel surveillance shows how determined an adversary Hamas is, according to Grinstein, whose nonprofit organization is a strategy and leadership group.
"Hamas seeks to destroy the state of Israel. It is not about a border dispute here or there. It's not about some sort of tension. It's about the fundamental rejection of the right of the state of Israel to exist,'' he said.
"Hamas is also very resourceful. They are … committed to the fight and therefore when they looked at the strategic equation, they understood that Israel was developing an answer to their missiles and that they cannot go on the surface so they went underground.
It's kind of shocking that effort that they put into buildings these tunnels. People say that with the amount of work, energy and resources that they put underground they could've built an entire education system. That's astonishing.''
While there has been talk of the Islamist militant group Hezbollah eventually joining Hamas in its fight against Israel, Grinstein doesn't buy it.
"Hezbollah is overstretched right now. They are fighting in Syria, they are challenging Lebanon,'' he said. "I don't think that they need another problem, another challenge coming from Israel. Having said that, anything could happen.''
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