Hamas has been expanding the extensive tunnel system for years. Weapons and goods were smuggled through the underground passages. Israel’s army wants to destroy them. What is known about the system?
Below the Gaza Strip there is a second world: a network of tunnels run by the Islamist Hamas stretches over many kilometers. Israel suspects that a number of terrorists from the Islamist organization are hiding in the underground passages and are also holding hostages from Israel there. Israeli soldiers are currently testing the flooding of some tunnels where they do not suspect any hostages, as the US newspaper “The Wall Street Journal” reports. According to his own statements, US President Joe Biden does not know with certainty “that there are definitely no hostages in these tunnels.”
Israel’s army is pumping seawater into some tunnels to find out whether the method is suitable for widespread destruction of the underground system, US television channel CNN reports, citing a US official familiar with the matter. Experts warn that the tactic could have dramatic consequences for the environment.
However, it is not the first time that the tactic has been used. Because weapons from the Gaza Strip are said to have reached extremists in North Sinai through the tunnels, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi once had tunnels flooded to the Palestinian coastal area.
Israel’s army also destroys tunnels with explosive devices
An Israeli army spokesman once described the tunnel network under the Gaza Strip, which is around 45 kilometers long and around six to 14 kilometers wide, as a metro. Israel’s army says it has now discovered hundreds of tunnels. Some of them connect Hamas’ strategic facilities underground. Soldiers destroyed many kilometers of underground routes using explosive devices. According to the army, the shafts are located in residential areas, next to schools and kindergartens.
When Israel’s air force destroyed parts of the refugee district of Jabalia while hunting Palestinian terrorists, collapsed Hamas tunnels tore holes in the earth’s surface, according to the Israeli army. Images showed deep craters in the area.
The dimensions of the tunnel system cannot be quantified
The tunnel system is estimated to be around 500 kilometers long. However, Daphne Richemond-Barak, an expert in underground warfare at Reichman University in Tel Aviv, 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. Their entrances should be in residential buildings or mosques.
According to Israeli intelligence services, Hamas also operated a command and control center beneath Shifa Hospital, the largest clinic in the Gaza Strip. Hamas denies this. Despite massive international criticism, Israel’s military entered the clinic and, according to their own statements, also found a tunnel complex there. Pictures and videos released by the army showed a narrow tunnel and several rooms, including a room with two bed frames, toilets and a small kitchen. According to the information, the tunnel was ten meters deep and 55 meters long. The military eventually blew up the underground facility.
In November 2022, the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA also 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 for weapons and weapons-making materials to enter 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. A lion for the zoo is also said to have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip in this way. According to residents, Hamas levies tariffs on all goods and finances itself this way. The tunnel business is said to have brought Hamas millions in annual revenue. The tunnels also offer terrorists protection from attacks. They also use them to appear out of nowhere and attack from behind. Many tunnels are booby-trapped to kill Israeli soldiers who enter them.
Hostages in the tunnels
Experts believe that at least some of the remaining 135 hostages are being held captive in the underground passages. Hamas terrorists and other extremist Palestinian groups abducted around 240 people from Israel in their massacre on October 7th. An 85-year-old woman released from Gaza on October 23 described the system she had to navigate during the hostage crisis as “a spider’s web.”
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.
