New York City resident documents life in the Israel Defense Forces
NEW YORK - Israeli soldiers are gearing up for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, and while doing so, soldiers are studying the labyrinth of streets and underground tunnels that exist in the territory.
Upper East Side resident Noy Leyb was wheels up to Israel just one day after Hamas' relentless, deadly assault on innocent civilians in the country. He came back to join the reserves in the Israel Defense Forces in an Elite Paratroopers unit. Leyb has been been documenting life in the IDF in real time, preparing for what's to come in this gruesome war.
"We've been physically getting ready, mentally getting ready, just waiting for the army to put us in," said Leyb.
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As the world prepares for an imminent IDF ground operation inside the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers say they're learning about Hamas' intricate maze of tunnels underground.
"It's a pretty crazy network of tunnels that they're all connected," said Leyb. "It's not that these tunnels we can just easily blow them up because they're in the middle of nowhere. They are under schools. They are under libraries. They are under hospitals."
Experts say what lives inside the tunnels is an arsenal of weapons and command posts. While urban combat is one thing, navigating tunnels is another. CBS News reports Hamas claims to have built 300 miles of hidden networks.
"For a group like Hamas to function and it be able to keep weapons and store them out of sight and whatnot, it's virtually impossible unless you have it underground," said Alex Plitsas, a Senior Non-resident Fellow at Atlantic Council.
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Leyb says his unit and hundreds of thousands of other soldiers are now standby for what's to come.
"We all just want this to be over and done, but we're not going to leave or take this uniform off until it is done," he said.
Experts say the operation will likely include the search for the 200-plus hostages that Hamas took into Gaza. They also say the hostage situation is so complicated because these networks of tunnels and how densely populated the territory is.
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