May 28, 2021
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Aerial photograph depicting what the Israeli army called a Hamas tunnel opening concealed underneath a beachfront hotel in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo: IDF
The Israeli army said it has destroyed more than 100 kilometers, or over 60 miles, of an underground tunnel system in the Gaza Strip during the past ten days of fighting with the Hamas militant group. The complex tunnel system is used by the terrorist group to move rockets and operatives from one area to another and to launch attacks.
“Since Operation Protection Edge in 2014, Hamas’ main effort was to build a network of tunnels, which are located in close proximity to hospitals and civilian buildings,” said a senior IDF officer. “Most of the cement which was provided by Israel to Gaza for housing is found below the ground.”
According to the senior military officer, the IDF’s partial tunnel destruction has dealt a large blow to Hamas’ military infrastructure, helping to slow down the intensity of the rocket fire launched at longer-range areas, including Tel Aviv, in recent days. Sirens in Tel Aviv have not been sounded since Saturday night. At the same time, Hamas rocket fire has continued targeting Israel’s south and areas closer to the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the IDF senior officer also pointed out that Hamas’ tunnel network was still estimated to stretch along as far as several hundred miles, as the terrorist organization operates across five brigades.
The cost of building the tunnel is estimated at around $50 million, according to the senior IDF officer. Initially, the so-called Metro tunnel project began with individual shafts dug deep underground and used as hiding places for Hamas terror operatives after launching rockets. With time, the network of tunnels grew and branched off to become an internal tunnel system throughout the Gaza Strip for military training and is used for mobility, storage of weaponry and to manage military operations. The terror infrastructure is embedded in civilian areas, and uses civilian buildings as entry points, as well as cover for the tunnels themselves.
Last night, IDF fighter jets and aircraft struck the tunnel system, located in Khan Yunis and Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, during a fifth stage of strikes. During the strikes, which lasted 25 minutes, approximately 40 Hamas underground military targets were struck. The strikes were carried out by 52 IDF fighter jets, with the use of approximately 120 guided armaments.
Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.
From Mako - Israel's Channel 12 (Hebrew):
In Israel, last night (Thursday-Friday), an IDF air and ground operation was reported in the foreign media, things looked different . This created a great deal of ambiguity, and major media outlets reported the launch of a ground operation. Now it turns out that this was not a mistake, but a planned ploy whose role is to help eliminate Hamas' forces. It is not for nothing that security officials have said in the past that Hamas does not understand this, but its tunnels will become mass cemeteries. The IDF has already planned how to turn the threat of the tunnels into an opportunity, and that is exactly what happened last night. Gaza City is surrounded by a network of defensive tunnels: miles upon miles of tunnels used by Hamas to fight underground, to kidnap soldiers, to move from place to place, to launch rockets, and even as meeting spaces. During fighting, Hamas fighters stay underground and work from there. Yesterday, the IDF managed to produce a vague picture of a ground operation. Infantry, artillery and tanks were moved towards the fence and at the same time the IDF spokesman in English released the ambiguous announcement. Thus, the IDF made Hamas think that a ground operation is beginning, which caused the organization to bring in all its fighters, including the Nahba, the special force of Hamas, to go down into the tunnels and prepare for combat. Then for 35 minutes 160 planes hover over Gaza and drop 450 bombs, which are over 80 tons of explosives, on the entire Gaza "metro" tunnel system. IDF forces are collapsing the array of tunnels on their occupants. At this time it is still unclear - both to us and to Hamas - the extent of the damage and the number of terrorist operatives buried there, but it is likely that it is in the hundreds. After the night operation, a security source who spoke with N12 says: "Yesterday we carried out at least 20 targeted assassinations of senior figures, and killed hundreds in Hamas. We destroyed most of Hamas' rocket production system, took care of the tunnel system, which was their strategic tool, and many other achievements."
These tunnels and bunkers are absolutely a valid military target, even though the damage to stores and houses above are inevitable and extensive. Under international law, a military cannot be hamstrung by the existence of civilian structures that are protecting critical military infrastructure as long as a reasonable military commander would believe that the target is important enough. In this case there is no doubt about it - this was an opportunity to inflict a huge amount of damage on Hamas, and it appears successful.
There is no doubt that a lot of innocent Palestinians were killed and injured last night. This is entirely Hamas' fault for using them as human shields.
Notably, neither Hamas' Al Qassam website nor the Islamic Jihad Saraya website have updated since the attack. (UPDATE: Hamas just did at 1 PM local time.)
UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post describes the scheme differently:
According to reports, due to the deployment along the border and the news coming out in the foreign media of a ground incursion, Hamas and Islamic Jihad sent their first-line of defense out of the tunnels and into their above-ground positions. These were the anti-tank missile teams and mortar squads meant to strike at incoming Israeli ground forces. What they did not know was that there was no ground offensive. Instead, once they were out of the tunnels, they were exposed to Israeli aircraft. Within minutes, the “Metro” attack went ahead.
The importance of demolishing the Metro system was to prevent Hamas from being able to easily move rockets around underground and set up the mass barrages that can be coordinated and linked to centralized command and control.
The underground system, according to the officer, links various villages and towns and Gaza city. “It is all connected underground,” he says. “[What] we strike are the main places we know they have more military use out of it and that is the places we preferred to focus on.” The Metro system enabled Hamas to launch barrages of long-range rockets, sometimes more than one hundred at a time. According to Iranian media during the recent conflict, Hamas had tried to overwhelm Israel’s air defenses with these saturation rocket launches. The IDF says that after it embarked on its campaign against the Metro that Hamas was less effective in targeting Israel’s cities such as Tel Aviv.
The major campaign against the Metro began on Friday, May 14, with some 160 aircraft hunting down 150 targets in a night-long air campaign. As recently as February 2021, the IDF had drilled to strike up to 3,000 targets in a twenty-four-hour period. This means the campaign in Gaza was only a small example of the firepower the IDF could unleash using advanced fifth-generation jets like the F-35 stealth fighter. This comes in the context of growing tensions between Israel and Iran and Iranian proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah.
When it comes to Hamas, the decision to strike at the Metro tunnel system builds on past campaigns that confronted other Hamas threats. For instance, in 2014 Israel targeted Hamas tunnels that stretched from Gaza into Israel. Israel then constructed a unique sensory barrier underground and above ground to prevent Hamas tunneling under the border. Israel has also struck Hamas frogmen and various naval units, including an unmanned submarine in this recent war. The IDF has had to contend with Hamas ATGM units as well as cyber warfare units and now drones. The Iron Dome system downed Hamas drones for the first time in this conflict.
The importance of demolishing the Metro system was to prevent Hamas from being able to easily move rockets around underground and set up the mass barrages that can be coordinated and linked to centralized command and control. In the past, Hamas often fired several rockets at a time from less sophisticated trucks and other methods. However, Iran has perfected the use of new precision missiles and also the hiding of rockets, such as the 107mm and 122mm used by militias in Iraq, so that they can be timed and fired at a location. Hamas rockets are now much larger, including some that can reach 250km.
Two Palestinians died and another was missing on Thursday after Egypt pumped toxic gas into a Gaza smuggling tunnel, Israel's N12 news reports.
The tunnel stretches from the Gaza Strip to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
The smuggling tunnels dug under the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border are used by Palestinians to bypass the Rafah Border Crossing. Fuel, food and other goods along with weapons are brought into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave from Egypt via the tunnel system.
Egyptian security forces in 2010 sprayed a border tunnel with gas, killing four Palestinians and wounding nine others.
In 2009 Egypt began building a steel border barrier along the 7.5 mile (14 km) border with Gaza to stop the smuggling tunnels. Construction started in February 2020 on a new concrete wall equipped with electronic sensors that runs 2 miles (3 km) along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Human rights groups have accused the Gaza government of using child labor in the smuggling tunnels.
On the Israel-Gaza border, Palestinian youths from the "Night Confusion Unit" have recently been rioting on the Gaza border fence, hurling rocks and improvised explosives.
The Hamas terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip maintains an extensive tunnel system within Gaza's borders, dubbed the "Hamas Metro." During May's Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israeli forces inflicted heavy damage on the tunnel system during extensive aerial bombing campaigns.