By Kirollos Abdalla –
Now we know, Hamas are ants.
Just like ants make extensive and complex tunnels, Hamas built an extensive network of 600+ miles of tunnels — dubbed the Metro of Gaza — at an estimated cost of $1 billion.
During some 12 years, they made tunnels just below the surface and tunnels at 200 meters down, out of reach for bunker buster bombs. They made tunnels big enough for trucks to drive through, tunnels with rails to transport material, tunnels to import weapons and finances from Egypt.
They were reinforced with steel and concrete. They spent $250,000 on blast doors to limit the damage from explosions. They installed phone lines and lights. When Hamas realized that the IDF had discovered a tunnel, they booby-trapped it with explosives.
Hamas even built luxury tunnels with AC, kitchens and fancy tiles for Hamas leaders.
Their tunnels pop up into civilian residences and hospitals. Some even open into what looks like a parked car. Militants can pop up anywhere at any time and slip away from the surface war in Gaza. The tunnels are both offensive and defensive.
The massive tunnel system, in which civilians are prohibited (it’s strictly for militants), provide three insights into Hamas’s thinking:
- The staggering price tag: For all the Gazan sympathizers who say the Palestinians have nothing due to Israel’s “occupation” and “apartheid,” the true story is that $1B poured into Gaza but Hamas didn’t invest in its civilians. They dumped it all into the tunnels.
- A war of wearing Israel down: Hamas never intended to win a surface war or an offensive war. They fought a war of wearing Israel down. By hiding in the tunnels, Hamas knew international pressure or internal pressure in Israel would get the IDF to stop. Hamas would survive whatever limited time period – in the tunnels.
- Human shields: The tunnels deliberately go under hospitals, schools and civilian residences. Instead of protecting civilians, Hamas wants civilians to protect militants. They actually want higher civilian death counts with which to malign Israel. They call them “necessary sacrifices” in their extremist endgame of wiping out Israel and all Jews.
“Building your military infrastructure underneath your civilians for the purpose of using them as a shield is a war crime,” says John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
In Vietnam, soldiers specialized in neutralizing Viet Cong tunnels became known as “tunnel rats.” Tunnels have been used by ancient and modern warfare, including King Hezekiah’s tunnel in the Bible.
But Gaza represents the first time in the history that a military built its entire strategy around its subterranean warfare. Knowing they could never beat the IDF on the open field, Hamas plotted a subterranean war. They could scurry about underground and survive until international pressure forced Israel to cease its warfare.
To get a grasp on the extensive nature of 600+ miles of tunnels, consider that Gaza is a strip of land of 140 square miles. The tunnels are multilayered, some close to the surface, some deep underneath. You can literally traverse the entire territory underground. Israel knew about the tunnels before the war, but they had no idea they were so extensive. It is a complexity that would make the ants envious.
There is no complete map of the Gazan tunnels online. The IDF has probably the most complete; it is not publicly available.
At the beginning of the war, the tunnels slowed the attack of the Israel Defense Forces. Every time the army encountered a shaft, they called in the Sayeret Yahalom brigade of Combat Engineering Corps to neutralize it before moving on.
By the end of the war, Brigadier General Dan Goldfuss actually used the tunnels against Hamas, coordinating attacks above and below at the same time. That’s how they flushed out and killed Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. It was an example of how warfare evolves on the fly.
The IDF sent robots into the tunnels first, then dogs, who would sniff out living persons so that the IDF wouldn’t accidentally kill hostages.
Now during a tenuous 3-week ceasefire, the question remains what to do with the tunnels. A plan to pump in sea water failed. Blowing them up is time-consuming. Filling them with cement is costly. Israel now appears to be filling the tunnels with a new fill material (cheaper than cement).
Many tunnels will simply remain. They pose a risk for stability in Gaza because any eventual guerrilla force that would oppose the coming civilian technocrat government (stipulated by Trump’s 20 point peace plan) could find refuge in and strike from the tunnels.
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