The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday said it has uncovered \u201cthe biggest Hamas tunnel\u201d in Gaza, spanning a length of four kilometres (2.5 miles). <\/p>\n
The IDF said the tunnel, secured \u201ca few weeks ago\u201d but revealed to the public Sunday, is wide enough to drive a large vehicle through, reaches up to 50 meters underground and is equipped with electricity, ventilation and communication systems. <\/p>\n
It does not cross into Israel but ends 400 meters before the now-shut Erez Crossing on the northern Israeli-Gazan border, according to the IDF. Erez was stormed during the October 7 attacks. <\/p>\n
The tunnel was a part of Hamas\u2019 \u201cstrategic infrastructure\u201d and would be destroyed, according to the IDF. In a video shared by the IDF, the Israeli military claimed that the tunnel was created for Hamas troop movements and as a launching point for attacks. <\/p>\n
In a statement Sunday, the IDF alleged that the tunnel system was a project of the brother of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Muhammad Sinwar. The IDF did not provide any evidence to support the claim. <\/p>\n
The IDF claims to have exposed \u201chundreds of terror tunnel shafts throughout the Gaza Strip\u201d and says it is operating \u201cto locate and destroy dozens of attack tunnel routes.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hamas\u00a0has\u00a0claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, though it is unclear if that figure was accurate. <\/p>\n
The tunnels under\u00a0Gaza\u00a0are used to smuggle goods from\u00a0Egypt, launch attacks into\u00a0Israel, store rockets and ammunition caches and house\u00a0Hamas\u00a0command and control centers. <\/p>\n
Some of those taken hostage in the October 7 attacks described being taken to them and being forced to march for hours. <\/p>\n
Last month, the Israeli military uncovered a tunnel shaft on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex, the enclave\u2019s largest medical facility. Its discovery has been central to the IDF\u2019s argument that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. <\/p>\n
The hospital, Gaza\u2019s largest, was raided by Israeli forces last month, who accuse Hamas of running a command center beneath it. Hamas and hospital officials say it has only been used to treat patients. <\/p>\n
If successful, flooding could be ramped up to degrade the tunnel network on a larger scale. <\/p>\n\n
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday said it has uncovered \u201cthe biggest Hamas tunnel\u201d in Gaza, spanning a length of four kilometres (2.5 miles). The IDF said the tunnel, secured \u201ca few weeks ago\u201d but revealed to the public Sunday, is wide enough to drive a large vehicle through, reaches up to 50 meters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}