(Jerusalem) The Israeli army claimed Wednesday to have discovered a network of tunnels used by “senior leaders” of the Palestinian movement Hamas in Gaza City.
According to images released by the army, this network of tunnels connected “terrorist hideouts, offices and apartments […] belonging to senior Hamas leaders” in Gaza. We can see soldiers accessing the basement of a house which leads to a long tunnel then to a room furnished with furniture.
This network is located, says the army, “in direct proximity to stores, government buildings, residences and a school”.
The tunnels were used by “senior Hamas officials, including Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinouar, Mohammed Deif and others, to direct their operational activities” and “protect them during their daily movements in the city center” of Gaza, said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman.
The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it had discovered the “largest tunnel” of the armed wing of Hamas under the Gaza Strip and which it claims extends for more than four kilometers with an mouth located only some 400 meters from the point of Erez crossing, between Palestinian territory and that of Israel.
The tunnel is equipped with a pipe system, electricity, ventilation, sewers, communications networks and rails, noted an AFP journalist authorized by the Israeli army to go there.
Hamas had downplayed the discovery of this tunnel by claiming that it had been built for a “mission” which was “carried out successfully”, according to a senior official of the Islamist movement, Osama Hamdane.
The Palestinian group carried out an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7 from the Gaza Strip which left around 1,140 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures available. Some 250 people were taken hostage, 129 of whom are still being held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
In retaliation, the Israeli authorities promised to destroy Hamas, relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip and carrying out ground operations there since October 27.
Since October 7, 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in this Palestinian territory, according to the Hamas government.