Some speak of a “second Gaza Strip.” Hamas has been expanding the extensive tunnel system over the years. It is not only used to smuggle weapons and goods.
Deep craters can be seen in images from Jabalia in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli army, when the Israeli air force destroyed parts of the refugee district while hunting Palestinian terrorists, collapsed Hamas tunnels tore holes in the earth’s surface.
There is a second world in the sandy soil of the Gaza Strip, which is around 45 kilometers long and around six to 14 kilometers wide and has more than two million inhabitants. An Israeli army spokesman once described these as “underground, the metro or the subway”.
Dimensions cannot be quantified
A number of hundreds of tunnels over a total length of 500 kilometers can often be read. But underground warfare expert at Reichman University in Tel Aviv, Daphne Richemond-Barak, recently doubted in the New York Times that anyone knew how long the route actually was.
“I think that Hamas is exaggerating a little with the 500 kilometers because it wants to deter Israel from an invasion,” military expert Harel Chorev from Tel Aviv University told the US broadcaster CNN. “We’re talking about dozens of kilometers underground with command, control and communication rooms, storage rooms and launch pads for the missiles.”
Some of the tunnels are concrete or supplied with electricity. On average they are two meters high and one meter wide, but some are also large enough for vehicles. To be able to withstand Israeli bombs from the air, some reach dozens of meters underground. Your entrances should be in residential buildings or mosques.
According to Israeli intelligence services, for example, Hamas operates its command and control center under Shifa Hospital, the largest clinic in the Gaza Strip. Hamas denies this. And in November 2022, the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA strongly condemned the fact that there is a tunnel under one of its schools.
What the underground network is for
Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but left a power vacuum behind. After a bloody battle, Hamas took control of the coastal area in 2007. In response, Israel imposed a blockade, which Egypt supported. The closure was intended to make it more difficult to import weapons and weapons-making materials into the Gaza Strip. Since then, Hamas has continued to expand its complex underground network. Weapons are said to have been brought into the Gaza Strip through the tunnels. It is said that people can also cross the border irregularly, such as high-ranking Hamas officials, foreign military advisors or couriers with suitcases of money. Food, consumer goods, cars and fuel also enter the Gaza Strip through the tunnels. According to residents, Hamas then levies customs duties and finances itself in this way. The tunnel system also offers Hamas terrorists protection from air strikes and persecution.
Experts believe that the 242 hostages that Hamas terrorists and other terrorist groups kidnapped from Israel on October 7 are also being held there. An 85-year-old woman released from the Gaza Strip on October 23 describes the system she had to navigate during the hostage-taking as “a spider’s web.”
The underground is also a strategic tool in a possible urban warfare. Hamas fighters could attack from behind, seemingly out of nowhere. The tunnels themselves are likely to be booby-trapped.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
