As the battle around Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City intensifies – and the number of civilian deaths continues to rise – the men and women of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are determined to eradicate their enemy.
Beneath the sprawling complex, Israeli intelligence emphasizes, lies a Hamas headquarters, a hub for the vast tunnel network that spans the entire Gaza Strip.
And somewhere in this underground world, hundreds of Israeli hostages were held by their terrorist captors for 40 days and nights.
In fact, the network is estimated to have a total length of 300 miles and is so extensive that it has been described as a “tube system” larger than the London Underground.
Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, who was released last month, revealed that Hamas had hidden her and other hostages in a tunnel system that “looked like a spider’s web.”
Tactics used by the Israeli military to destroy Hamas’s underground network throughout the Gaza Strip
When I was last in Gaza in 2016, the influence of these tunnels was felt everywhere. Thousands of people have found work in them and tens of thousands more, from drivers to shopkeepers, have benefited from the work they provided.
It’s an unsettling feeling to walk around knowing there’s an army of terrorists holed up beneath your feet, smuggling goods and planning attacks.
The tunnels are deadly: they are the lifeblood of Hamas’ war against Israel and a web of terror. And they need fuel and oxygen to function.
One of the reasons Israel has been so hesitant to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip is the fact that it knows Hamas is withdrawing urgently needed aid to keep the tunnels operational.
In fact, Hamas has huge supplies of fuel to light its tunnels, while ordinary Gazans lie in hospitals with barely enough electricity to power the equipment.
On Monday, the Israeli military released images of a weapons cache allegedly found in Hamas tunnels beneath the al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, a mile and a half from al-Shifa. They also found a motorcycle believed to have been used to transport the hostages seized on October 7th.
In one room there was a chair with women’s clothing and a rope next to it, suggesting it was used to bind prisoners. There was a baby bottle and diapers nearby.
When the IDF finally sent ground troops into Gaza two weeks ago and cut the area in half, they knew that to win this war they had to destroy the tunnels and the terrorists within them.
The Israeli military is reluctant to discuss this during an ongoing operation, but through long-standing contacts in the country, I have spoken to several sources who have explained to me the situation they are facing.
“The Hamas terror machine is a network of tunnels under Gaza, mostly in urban areas,” a senior Israeli official told me. “It’s absolutely impressive.” You can’t destroy Hamas’ military machine without dealing with its underground terror network. That’s why we sent our ground troops.’
The enemy beneath: Terrorists guarding one of the tunnels beneath Gaza City, pictured earlier this year
Members of the Al-Quds Brigades, an armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, read the Quran while guarding tunnels on the Gaza-Israel border in Gaza City on March 30 this year
IDF sources tell me that the tunnels range from narrow corridors measuring 6 x 3 feet to huge passageways that cars and even trucks can pass through.
They are encased in concrete and well lit; They contain command centers, ammunition depots and weapons factories. They are used to launch attacks on Israel and also to infiltrate everything from vehicles to long-range weapons.
David Patrikarakos is UnHerd’s foreign correspondent
Most are high enough for an average-sized man to stand in, and often deep enough to avoid the IDF’s bunker-destroying bombs, which can penetrate up to 130 feet, or 40 m. Hiding underground means two things. First, they are harder to find and kill; Secondly, everything above you – in Gaza that’s millions of civilians – becomes your “cover”. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Minister of Social Equality, told me: “The biggest threat is to the people of Gaza because all of these tunnel systems are hidden by civilians. “They are literally human shields.”
A former defense official, who could not be named because he was on active reserve duty, was even more blunt: “They have turned large swaths of Gaza into legitimate military targets.” These sons of bitches have deliberately dug their tunnels under homes, mosques and hospitals to protect them To maximize the number of civilian casualties. This isn’t just cynical, it’s pure evil.’
An important question remains: how can Hamas spend millions of pounds to procure the concrete, electricity and liters of fuel and oxygen needed to build all this when Gaza is supposedly under total lockdown by Israel?
The answer is as simple as it is depressing. “For years, the international community has been sending cement to Gaza for housing construction, and Hamas has stolen it,” the senior Israeli official said. “No one can stop them because they are the only people in Gaza with weapons.”
He continues: “They need the fuel for their rockets, but also to keep the oxygen and the lights on in the tunnels.” That’s why they steal fuel from civilians in the Gaza Strip and humanitarian aid supplies – be it desalination material for water or, most horrifically, fuel for hospital generators.”
Dr. Daphné Richemond-Barak, a professor at Israel’s Reichman University and author of “Underground Warfare,” made it clear: “I have no doubt that any fuel that goes into Gaza goes to Hamas.” “It would be a big one Mistake to send fuel to Gaza – that would only prolong the fighting,” she told me.
But building tunnels also requires equipment and expertise, and this is where the picture becomes even more frightening.
The terrorist group Isis, which raged in Iraq and Syria before being crushed by coalition forces, has a major influence on Hamas’s military strategy. When ISIS controlled the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, it made extensive use of tunnels. Hamas has obviously also internalized the knowledge gained there.
According to Richemond-Barak, Isis’s influence is crucial. “But we have to remember that ISIS fought in the tunnels in Syria and Iraq for a few months at most,” she says. “Hamas has been in the tunnels for over 20 years.”
But it is not just IS that has helped Hamas, but a far more powerful and dangerous entity: Iran.
“Over 90 percent of Hamas’s military budget comes from Iran,” the senior official tells me. “Iran has supplied weapons and supported Hamas in its domestic weapons manufacturing capabilities.”
“We know that there is a close working relationship between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran and Hamas. They meet, they coordinate, they work together.”
When Hamas launched drones against Israel in its last major clash of 2021, it used Shehab drones based on Iran’s Ababil-2 drone. In Ukraine in recent months I have witnessed attacks by Russian forces using Iranian Shahed drones. An alliance of renegade actors is growing around the world. And in Gaza, its presence is felt most clearly in the tunnels.
“Never forget, the tunnels are the oxygen of a terrorist group that has a sophisticated military infrastructure – and it’s all in these tunnels,” says Richemond-Barak. “Everything you would expect a military to do to wage war, plan and execute attacks, manufacture and supply weapons is underground.”
‘This is important. “The enemy’s apparatus that wants to destroy you is underground: this is the problem that the IDF faces at the strategic level.”
Yesterday, smoke rose from an Israeli military attack on the northern Gaza Strip
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli attack on a house yesterday amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip
Israeli soldiers return to a staging area from a patrol on the Gaza border on November 15
At the tactical and operational level, the tunnels determine how Israel’s military operations will proceed and how the war will end.
Warfare of this kind poses a serious threat to the IDF. When fighting underground, the military must rethink the forces it deploys; how it equips and trains soldiers; and what tactical policies it will introduce.
As Richemond-Barak argues, “Tunnel fighting is generally one-on-one.” If you’re wounded, you’re unlikely to be withdrawn, and of course Hamas is keen to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
“Then there are the booby traps. These can be anything from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to blown up hostages.”
Tunnels change everything on a tactical, strategic and operational level. Therefore, they pose a major threat to the invading forces.
The Americans tried to destroy the Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam with B-52 bombers, while the Russians relentlessly bombed the Azov Valley steel mill in Mariupol last year.
Traditionally, armies use their strongest forces and weapons to deal with the tunnels. This, says Richemond-Barak, “explains the Israeli reaction.”
That response has so far consisted of a combination of aerial bombing raids – including dropping sponge bombs made of liquid foam that expands and hardens to seal tunnels – and the use of dogs and robots on the ground.
Currently, Israeli elite Yahalom “Diamond” units are searching for tunnels to destroy.
Their colleagues in the Samur (“Weasel”) unit – commandos trained in underground warfare – are sent into hand-to-hand combat against Hamas terrorists.
What Israel has before it is a sophisticated, well-armed and well-financed terrorist group operating from a city of terror that is, to all intents and purposes, underground and unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
It is backed by Iran, a foreign power with a sophisticated political and military apparatus.
Make no mistake, the goal of both Iran and Hamas is not only the destruction of Israel, but also the Western alliance that supports it.
Even if the war between Israel and Hamas seems far away, it is not. This is no different from the fight against al-Qaeda or Isis. It is the same kind of dangerous, radical Islamism that we have seen in parts of the UK, US and Europe. Believe me, the battle is not as far away as it seems at first glance.
At the end of our conversation, Israeli Minister Amichai Chikli appealed: “We really need the support of the civilized world to destroy Hamas.” People need to understand that the same ideology can be found in the US and Europe – and that they “The fight must be fought there just as strongly.”
DAVID PATRIKARAKOS is UnHerd’s foreign correspondent.