The Israeli army said the tunnel was part of a larger, branched network, four kilometers long and 400 meters from the Erez border crossing. The construction of the tunnel cost millions of dollars and took several years. The project manager was Mohamed Jahja, brother of Hamas leader Jahja Sinwar, considered one of the masterminds of Hamas' major attack on Israel on October 7.
The corridors have a sewage network, electricity, ventilation, sewage collection and communication network, in addition to trails. The floor is made of compacted earth, the walls are made of reinforced concrete and the entrance is made of a metal cylinder with walls one and a half centimeters thick.
Images released by the Israeli army, reportedly filmed by Hamas, show a small construction vehicle being driven into the tunnel, a large makeshift warehouse with precast concrete to reinforce the walls, and construction workers carrying heavy equipment digging the tunnel. Earth. The Israeli army said it found numerous weapons in the tunnel ready for an attack.
Hamas has invested large resources in the project, said army spokesman Richard Hecht. They did so “with a single purpose,” to “attack the State of Israel and its residents,” he said. The tunnel was deliberately built near the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip, Hecht said. Israel uses this to control Palestinian workers and other travelers who require medical care in Israel. “For Hamas, attacks on the people of Israel continue to take priority over the people of Gaza,” Hecht continued.
The labyrinth of tunnels, called the “Gaza Metro” by the Israeli army, was originally built to bypass the Israeli-Egyptian blockade after Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip in 2007. Hundreds of tunnels were built up to the Egyptian Sinai, through of which people, goods and also weapons arrived in the Gaza Strip.
Since the war with Israel in 2014, the tunnel system has been expanded and Hamas has repeatedly used it in its rocket attacks. According to a study by the US Military Academy at West Point, there are 1,300 tunnels with a total length of more than 500 kilometers. In early December, the Israeli army said it had discovered more than 800 tunnels and destroyed 500 of them. Israeli media recently reported that the army was considering flooding the tunnels with Mediterranean water and had already carried out successful tests.