2023-10-14 21:40:20
The tiny territory of Gaza is pierced by a veritable labyrinth of secret tunnels that the militant group has been digging for decades and that serve as a refuge and communications network for its fighters, as a warehouse for its arsenal, and as a conduit for smuggling goods into the Strip. and even to infiltrate Israeli territory without being detected.
The network of galleries, which Israel calls “the Gaza metro” Due to its extension and density, it has become a key piece in Hamas’ military strategy and a potential nightmare for Israeli troops in a ground offensive such as the one expected after the attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
The tunnels “They have been crucial for Hamas, a very important part of its survival.”which has allowed it to have economic activity and military capacity,” he explains to BBC Mundo Yossi Mekelberg, analyst in the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.
As in previous operations, one of the objectives of Israeli aviation in the current offensive on Gaza is the destruction of Hamas tunnels.
“Think of the Gaza Strip like a layer of civilians and another layer for Hamas. “We are trying to get to that second layer that Hamas has built,” a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) recently stated in a video intervention.
Some 1,800 people, the vast majority of them civilians, have been killed so far in Gaza in Israeli bombings. The operation, which Israel considers a “war”, was launched in retaliation for the attack that Hamas carried out last weekend against several towns in southern Israel, which left at least 1,300 dead, mostly civilians. Hamas has also captured about 150 hostages and transferred them to Gaza.
Palestinian Liberation Front soldiers stand guard in case of Israeli attacks in one of the Gaza tunnelsAnadolu Agency – Anadolu
The tunnels first appeared in the early 2000s on the Gaza-Egypt border. They were mainly dedicated to smuggling, allowing Palestinians to bring all types of goods into the Strip and thus bypass Israeli control.
Gaza, a territory 41km long by 10km wide, is a Palestinian enclave that borders to the north and east with Israel, which tightly controls its access, to the south with Egypt, which also keeps the border closed with few exceptions, and to the south. west with the Mediterranean Sea, where Israel exercises an insurmountable naval blockade.
When Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, and especially after Hamas took control of the Strip in 2007, tunnel construction skyrocketed.
Israel and Egypt tightened controls on Gaza for security reasons and the tunnels, many in private hands and some large enough to allow vehicles to pass through, became a spillway for Gazans and a business for their owners.
Defensive and offensive smuggling tunnels have been built under GazaGetty Images – Getty Images Europe
Basic products, cement, animals, seeds, medicines or diapers, but also weapons, enter through the tunnels.
“You could say that the network of tunnels has been a lifeline for Hamas for many yearsespecially since the blockade in 2007. Without the tunnels it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Hamas to survive and manage the living conditions in Gaza for more than 2 million people,” he explains to BBC Mundo Khaled el Haroub, professor specializing in Middle Eastern studies at Northwest University in Qatar and author of several books on Hamas.
According to some statistics, explains El Haroub, until 2013-2014, when the Egyptian government decided to destroy them, there were nearly a thousand tunnels, and they were “a secret with voices”.
“Egypt, Israel, the US… everyone knew them because they were, in some way, part of a tacit agreement. “If there was a blockade in Gaza by all possible means – air, sea and land – there had to be some type of vital exit for the Gazans, and that source was the tunnels, which were closely monitored by Egypt,” says the Palestinian analyst. .
The tunnel network in Gaza has been described as a “lifeline” for HamasAnadolu Agency – Anadolu
The tunnels, Haroub claims, have also been a source of financing for Hamas, which created a government office to collect a tax on all smuggled goods.
The geology of the strip has also facilitated the construction of the galleries.
“Terrain and geography have a big impact on tunnel construction, and Gaza is mainly sandy terrain, so It’s pretty easy to dig. Plus, they have the manpower and time. “They have had all the time in the world,” he assures BBC Mundo Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, attached to Bar Ilan University in Israel.
But, in addition to the smuggling tunnels with Egypt, Hamas began to build other types of galleries to attack Israel.
Los offensive tunnels, as they are known, cross underground the perimeter of Gaza and enter Israeli territory. They have been used to attack Israel’s army and populations.
In 2006, a Hamas commando managed to enter Israel through one of these two tunnels to attack a military post, in which they killed two soldiers and They kidnapped a third, Gilad Shalitwho was held in Gaza for five years.
In another case in 2013, after residents of a kibbutz reported strange sounds, the Israeli army discovered a 1.6 kilometer, 18 meter deep tunnel that led from the Strip to land near the town.
A year later, Israel carried out an incursion into Gaza with the aim of detecting these tunnels and destroying them. According to the IDF, 30 galleries were destroyed in this operation.
Israel also developed sensor technology to try to detect the excavation of tunnels, and in 2021 completed the construction of an underground concrete barrier, which penetrates several meters into the ground to prevent tunnels from crossing the border.
This type of tunnels have had a profound psychological impact on the population of southern Israel which, as Shamir points out, was prepared to deal with the launch of rockets from the Strip “but not for the threat that, suddenly, inside Israel, people would come out with motorcycles to attack towns, as they have done this time”.
Hamas members publicly display material used to build tunnels in GazaGetty
Last Saturday, October 7, Hamas used these offensive tunnels to attack Israel, but it did so in a new way.
They built tunnels that approached the fence, but did not go through it. “These tunnels They allowed them to bring their forces closer to the fence, and then quickly emerge to the surfaceblow up the fence and advance,” details Eitan Shamir.
These types of offensive tunnels “are usually rudimentary, that is, they barely have any type of fortification. They are excavated for one use only: to invade Israeli territory,” he explains to BBC News Daphné Richemond-Barak, underground warfare expert and professor at Reichman University in Israel.
Very different are the third type of tunnels that Hamas has built inside the Strip, in which its leaders hide and which They perform a defensive function.
“The tunnels inside Gaza are different because Hamas uses them on a regular basis. They are probably more comfortable to spend long periods of time in,” according to the expert.
These galleries, which are excavated to depths of up to 30 meters and are reinforced by concrete walls and ceilingsare equipped with electricity and rails to move goods, have command and control centers, and are used as underground communication channels to avoid detection by Israel.
Gaza tunnels likely to be used by Hamas to hide hostagesALI ALI – EPA
The analysts consulted agree that it is quite likely that Hamas hides Israeli hostages in these tunnels.
According to the Israeli army spokesman, the tunnels that Hamas has built in the last 20 years extend from Gaza City to the towns of Khan Younis or Rafah, in the south of the Strip. According to Israel, Hamas camouflages its entrances in residential areas, schools or mosques.
This produces, according to Khaled el Haroun, mixed feelings among part of the Gaza population: “On the one hand, people are very proud of what the resistance has managed to do despite the blockade, Israeli, American, Egyptian and sometimes even Jordanian intelligence, and the Palestinian National Authority . But there is also fear of what is happening under their houses.”
Israel believes, however, that Hamas uses civilians as human shields: “They are not bunkers that Gazan civilians can access when Israel strikes,” an IDF spokesperson said this week.
At the moment, Israeli aviation is using what are known as bunker-buster bombs, which penetrate several meters into the ground before exploding, to try to destroy the maximum number of tunnels possible.
But, if Israel finally begins a ground offensive on Gaza, the tunnels, experts warn, They can become a mousetrap for Israeli troops.
“Gaza is a trap that no military wants to enter,” says the director of the Begin-Sadat center. Its very high population density makes it almost impossible not to cause collateral victims, “to which is added this network of tunnels, which are very difficult to find and become a trap,” says Shamir.
Conocé The Trust Project
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