2023-10-28 17:26:46
The Israeli military nicknamed him the “ Gaza metro ». The Israeli daily Maarivhe headlined this week on a “hell underground”. As for the experts, they speak more soberly of a “real underground city”.
The sprawling network of tunnels controlled by Hamas in the Palestinian enclave is undoubtedly one of the key issues in the war which has pitted Israel against this Islamist movement since its surprise attack on October 7, and which seems to have started this Saturday, October 28. in a new phase.
After a night of strikes of unprecedented intensity in the north of the territory, already bloodless after three weeks of bombing, the Israeli army announced that its combat planes had reached during the night “150 underground targets”. Among them, “tunnels used by terrorists, combat sites and other underground infrastructure”. The army also reported “several Hamas terrorists killed”.
30, 40 or even 70 meters underground
Israel is convinced that the Palestinian Islamist movement directs and organizes most of its operations from this gigantic network, that it stores its arsenal there and holds hostages there. This underground maze could in any case constitute a decisive weapon for Hamas in the event of a large-scale ground offensive, facing an Israeli army that is certainly massive and well equipped, but unaccustomed to urban guerrilla warfare.
Although the extent of this labyrinth is difficult to assess, some experts estimate that it has around 1,300 galleries, with a total length of around 500 km. In May 2021, Israel claimed to have destroyed 100 kilometers of tunnels, notably using bunker-busting bombs capable of exploding beneath the surface of the ground. “The occupier failed to destroy 5% of the Gaza metro”replied Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas.
About two meters high and wide, these tunnels are equipped with ventilation systems, electric lighting, and in some cases even rails to transport heavy loads, or even a second floor. You can hide there for a long time, while communicating safe from spyware. Their presence 30, 40 or even 70 meters underground would explain why Hamas has survived so many Israeli bombings and artillery fire.
Juicy contraband market
The construction of the first tunnels in Gaza dates back to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which established the border with Egyptian Sinai: Arab families thus separated used these tunnels to find each other.
After the enclave passed into the hands of Hamas in 2007 and was placed under blockade by Israel the same year, these galleries proliferated. Food, medicine, cigarettes, weapons and ammunition passed from Egypt to Gaza, supplying a lucrative smuggling market. These imports reached such a volume that the Egyptians ended up flooding the tunnels.
Other galleries were then dug under the border with Israel. In 2006, they enabled the kidnapping of Franco-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, exchanged five years later for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Israel subsequently installed an underground electronic fence all along the Gaza Strip at a cost of one billion dollars.
For around ten years, Hamas has expanded its underground network in the bowels of Gaza, allowing its fighters to move around without exposing themselves too much in this strip of sand 40 kilometers long and 10 wide.
Radars and thermal glasses
Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old Israeli hostage freed by Hamas on October 24, described walking “kilometers” through what she compared to a ” Spider web “. It was there ” very humid “she added.
If the scenario of a large-scale ground offensive is confirmed, the “Gaza metro” will undoubtedly allow Hamas fighters to withdraw and surprise Israeli soldiers with mines and other traps.
Israel, however, says it has radars allowing it to identify combatants in a closed environment, as well as thermal glasses so its soldiers can operate in the dark. The Israeli army has also developed robots that can be used as vanguards, and expansive fluids capable of sealing off underground passages.
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