As Israel prepares for a ground offensive in Gaza, the extensive network of underground tunnels built by Hamas poses a significant threat. These tunnels hide fighters, rockets, and hostages, giving Hamas an advantage in urban warfare. The Israeli military has already targeted 150 underground Hamas targets in northern Gaza.
As an Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip looms in its most devastating war yet with Hamas, one of the greatest threats to both its troops and the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped inside the seaside enclave is buried deep underground.
Overnight on Saturday, the Israeli military said its warplanes struck 150 underground Hamas targets in northern Gaza, describing them as tunnels, combat spaces and other underground infrastructure. That is especially true in the Gaza Strip, home to Hamas’s tunnel system that Israel has named the “Metro”.
The Israeli military has known of the threat since at least 2001, when Hamas used a tunnel to detonate explosives under an Israeli border post. During a 2014 war, Hamas militants killed at least 11 Israeli soldiers after infiltrating into Israel through tunnels. In another incident, an Israeli officer, Lt Hadar Goldin, was dragged into a tunnel inside Gaza and killed. Hamas has been holding his remains since then.
Typically, modern militaries have relied on punishing air strikes to collapse tunnels. Israeli strikes in Gaza so far in this war have killed more than 7,300 people, according Gaza’s Health Ministry. But those strikes can inflict only limited damage on the subterranean network. Clearing the tunnels with hostages trapped inside likely will be a “slow, methodical process”, with the Israelis relying on robots and other intelligence to map tunnels and their potential traps, according to the Soufan Centre think tank.
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