Undercover IDF troops who came under fire during a botched mission in Gaza in November were attempting to install equipment to monitor Hamas' landline communications network, the Gaza-based terrorist group said on Saturday.
In a pre-recorded TV statement, Hamas' military wing displayed surveillance footage - as well as photos of power drills, chainsaws and two pistols with silencers - as evidence to back up its claims.
According to Hamas, commandos from the IDF's elite Sayeret Matkal unit sought to "plant spying devices in the Gaza Strip."
The IDF has not released details about the operation which went awry Nov. 11, leading to the heaviest round of cross-border fire, including Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes, since Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
One IDF officer, known only as Lt. Col. M, was killed during the raid while sacrificing himself to help his troops escape, and another officer was badly wounded. Further details of his identity were revealed by Hamas but remain classified by the IDF military censor.
The Hamas statement described an Israeli mission that allegedly lasted for close to a year.
Hamas military wing spokesman, identified only as Abu Obeida, said that between January and October 2018, Israel had brought equipment and vehicles into Gaza through a commercial crossing point. On a foggy night a few days before Nov. 11, 15 members of the Israeli unit allegedly split into two teams and entered Gaza through the border fence, the spokesman said.
One team was supposedly tasked with installing the equipment while the other team was there to safeguard the others.
The spokesman also said a woman working with the Israeli unit entered Gaza several times, disguised as an employee of a humanitarian organization. Members of the unit used IDs that stole the identities of real Gazan residents and documents identifying them as charity workers, he added.
On Nov. 11, Hamas operatives spotted the IDF squad as as it was driving past the town of Abasan al-Sair in southern Gaza. A firefight ensued in which Lt. Col. M and two Hamas gunmen, including a senior local commander, were killed. Five other terrorists were killed in strikes by Israeli aircraft providing cover for the retreating force.
In the televised statement, Hamas showed low-resolution surveillance camera footage purportedly showing two vehicles being used by the undercover squad. The footage showed some faces of the occupants of the vehicles and what Hamas said was the moment its gunmen searched the van.
According to the investigation, which confirmed previous reports, the firefight began when a Hamas commander, Nour Baraka, ordered the occupants of the van to stop. They then shot him with silenced pistols.
"Israel's security and intelligence forces should be worried about the information we retrieved and the sophisticated technological equipment we now possess, which gives us a strategic advantage in any future conflict with the occupying Zionist army," Abu Obeida said.
