Israel\’s southern citizens will now be informed via SMS of Hamas tuunel-digging activity and will be asked to go home and turn off the lights; Military official: "They need to understand that not every alarm means terrorists have entered Israel.\’
Israel is taking an additional precautionary step against Hamas tunnels which is intended to draw the attention of southern residents surrounding the Gaza region to incidents of Hamas tunnel digging.
From now on, a red alert will be sounded not only when rockets are launched but also when information is received about the digging into Israeli territory from tunnels.
The alarm will sound identical to that when rockets are falling into Israeli territory. However, in order to distinguish between rocket warnings and tunnel digging, the southern residents will receive, in addition to the alarm, an SMS message instructing, “Due to terrorist digging, residents are requested to go into their homes and switch off the lights until further notice.”
Additionally, security coordinators will sound warning messages on the public address system about the tunnel penetration. The new warning system has been adopted as a result of lessons learned during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Speaking about the new initiative, a military official said on Tuesday, “Our central mission today is to defend the communities, in addition to offensive engagements against terror. The Israeli communities in the Gaza area are of primary importance their strength means success.”