A real “spider’s web”. It is with these words that Yocheved Lifshitz, one of the only four Israeli hostages released by Hamas, described the terrorist organization’s underground network, evoking “many, many tunnels”, and explaining having “walked under land for several kilometers.
Dismantling this network of tunnels dug in the Gaza Strip by Hamas should be one of the biggest challenges for the Israeli army to be able to deprive the terrorist organization of all its “capabilities of action”. The IDF is convinced that the Islamist movement directs and organizes its operations from this gigantic tangle of underground passages. The general staff of the Hebrew State believes that this is also where Hamas stores its weapons and ammunition, and above all where it holds the hostages kidnapped on October 7, making any operation of terrorism even more complex. magnitude.
When it comes to intensifying its offensive, the Israeli army has specifically targeted this network. The IDF announced this Saturday, October 28, that its combat planes had struck “150 underground targets in northern Gaza during the night, including tunnels used by terrorists, combat sites and other underground infrastructure.”
“More than 500 kilometers” of tunnels
However, the success of this operation claimed by Israel could well remain largely insufficient given the scale of this underground maze. Its construction began in 2007, to circumvent the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip after Hamas took power in this territory. The Palestinians then began to open hundreds of galleries under the border with Egyptian Sinai to circulate people, goods, but also weapons and ammunition between Gaza and the outside world.
If these tunnels have always been the priority target of the Israeli army during each resurgence of the conflict, this network has only grown. Today it is even difficult to judge the exact length of these galleries which can be buried up to 30 or 40 meters deep. The leader of the Islamist group in Gaza, Yehya al Sinwar, declared in 2021 that the terrorist organization had “more than 500 kilometers” of underground spaces, even though an Israeli military official cited by AFP put the figure at $500,000. the cost of building each kilometer of tunnel.
“It’s a real underground city,” describes John Spencer, author of a study published on October 17 for the Institute of Modern Warfare at the American Military Academy West Point. He mentions a network of nearly 1,300 galleries over 500 kilometers. The Gaza Strip, however, is only 41 kilometers long and 6 to 12 kilometers wide.
An essential ground intervention?
This sprawling network makes the mission declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “eradicate Hamas” particularly complex. According to Israeli security sources quoted by the American news agency Reuters“the unprecedented aerial bombardments carried out by the IDF since the Hamas attack have failed to actually damage the underground infrastructure” of the terrorist organization.
To really be able to definitively dislodge Hamas from the “Gaza metro”, as it is nicknamed, it is difficult to imagine any other solution than a ground military intervention. A mission that promises to be extremely perilous: according to United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, invading Gaza could prove more difficult than the nine months of battle fought in Iraq to retake the city of Mosul from the State organization. Islamic in 2017. Firstly, the probable presence of traps and explosive devices in the enclave and particularly in its underground passages, as well as a much better knowledge of the terrain. While Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant affirmed this Saturday that the war with Hamas had “entered a new phase”, it therefore promises to be particularly dangerous.