IDF finds 15-metre-deep excavation beside Hebron home of Judea Junction gunman

Israeli soldiers located an underground excavation next to the Hebron home of one of the gunmen behind last weekend's shooting attack at Judea Junction, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said on Monday. According to the military, the find was made on Sunday during a counterterrorism operation in the West Bank city, as troops searched more than 500 sites.

The army described the cavity as roughly 15 metres deep and 75 centimetres wide. Emanuel Fabian, military correspondent for The Times of Israel, reported that according to the IDF the structure had no exit, lies deep inside Hebron, and does not threaten any Israeli settlements in the area. The IDF characterised these conclusions as the result of an initial assessment.

The attack that prompted the searches

The operation began after a shooting on Friday in Hebron in which two Israeli soldiers were killed. The IDF named them as Staff Sergeant Ron Yonatan Roytman and Sergeant Yuval Shai Svilem, and said other soldiers were lightly hurt. A Hebrew-language version of the military statement, carried by the Abu Ali Express channel, put the number of additional lightly wounded fighters at three. That version referred to the soldiers with the Hebrew honorific used for the dead, meaning "of blessed memory", and described the incident as a clash rather than an attack.

The Jerusalem Post identified the gunman whose home was next to the excavation as a Hamas member. That affiliation appears only in the Post's report among the material available; the IDF statements quoted by other outlets refer to him as one of the terrorists involved, and Fabian described the attackers as Palestinian gunmen.

Where this happened

Hebron is a large Palestinian city in the southern West Bank. Israeli official usage refers to that region as Judea, part of the area it calls Judea and Samaria, which is why the military named the site of the shooting Judea Junction. According to the Hebrew statement, the operation in Hebron is under the command of the Judea Brigade, the IDF regional formation responsible for that sector.

Following deadly attacks in the West Bank, the army commonly mounts search operations in the area the perpetrators came from, including raids on their homes and surroundings. In this case the military framed the excavation as one result of a wide sweep, rather than an intelligence-led strike on a known target.

Excavation, passageway, shaft or tunnel

Outlets used different words for the same structure. The IDF's English statements called it an underground excavation. The Hebrew statement used a term best rendered as an underground cavity or void. Fabian wrote of an underground passageway and a tunnel, while The Jerusalem Post described a concealed underground shaft and published imagery from inside it supplied by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. The measurements given by the army, deep but narrow and with no exit, may fit a vertical shaft better than a horizontal tunnel, but the reports do not settle what the structure was built as.

What the military has said about the risk

The IDF's emphasis was on reassurance. Its preliminary findings, as relayed by Fabian and the military's own posts, are that the excavation leads nowhere and sits well inside the city, away from Israeli communities. The army did not say whether the cavity would be destroyed, sealed or examined further.

What the reports do not say

• Who dug the excavation, when, and for what purpose. The military's assessment is described as initial.
• Whether the gunman linked to the nearby home had any connection to it, beyond its location.
• What happened to the gunmen after Friday's attack, and how many took part. The reports refer to one of several but give no number.
• Whether anything was found inside the excavation, or whether arrests or other finds resulted from the searches of more than 500 sites.
• Confirmation from any source other than The Jerusalem Post of the gunman's Hamas affiliation.