They call it the ‘Hamas Metro’ and according to the terrorist group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, the network of tunnels beneath the small enclave stretches for 500 kilometers – or 25 percent longer than the entire London Underground.
If Israel is to succeed in its stated goal of “destroying” Hamas, finding and wiping out these tunnels with hidden entrances into homes, schools and mosques is an essential part of the mission, but one that carries inherent risks.
The network has been held like a ‘spider’s web’ for more than two weeks by recently released hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, an 85-year-old woman.
She told reporters afterwards: “We ended up going underground and walking for miles in wet tunnels, for two to three hours, in a spider web of tunnels,” she said. “We went through the tunnels until we came to a large hall.”
The Gaza tunnel network first began more than two decades ago, connecting it with Egypt and Israel, and was mainly used for smuggling contraband and weapons.
A member of the Al-Quds Brigades, an armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, stands guard in a tunnel on the Israel-Gaza border on March 30, 2023.
Members of the Al-Quds Brigades are seen in the tunnel system, March 30, 2023
But in recent years, especially since the last Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Hamas has made the tunnels a key part of their war machine, building landlines and allowing them to carry out their operations undetected.
According to the Israelis, an important command and control base has been unearthed just below Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, and Israel has considered it a legitimate military target and bombed close to the building.
In 2006, Hamas terrorists kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit after he used a tunnel to access the Kelem Shalom border crossing on the Israeli side.
He was held for five years before being exchanged for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners.
MailOnline has spoken exclusively to the Israeli soldiers who in the past had the dangerous task of destroying tunnels using explosives and earth-moving equipment.
But they must always remain wary that the tunnel they are trying to destroy may have other entrances from which the enemy below could emerge.
In 2014, when Israel last entered Gaza, Ben Milch, now 31, and a business development leader at a start-up, commanded a team of combat engineers charged with destroying the “terror tunnels.”
The US-born father of two recalled: ‘The tunnels we focused on led straight into Israel and were used by the terrorists to carry out attacks.
‘A telltale sign was sometimes a pulley system attached to the side of a house to move the excavated earth. And when we dug down, we usually found the tunnel about 15 feet deep.
‘In other places there was a steel shutter in a room of a house or mosque. Our job was not to enter the tunnels, but to destroy them.
Members of the Al-Quds Brigades are seen in the tunnel system, March 30, 2023
An Israeli army officer gives journalists a tour of a tunnel system reportedly used by Palestinian terrorist groups for cross-border attacks on Israel, July 25, 2014
MailOnline has spoken exclusively to the Israeli soldiers (Ben Milch, left and Major Omri Attar, right) who have in the past been given the dangerous task of destroying tunnels using explosives and earth-moving equipment.
‘We would basically drill a hole in the tunnel, then drop a bunch of anti-tank mines containing C4 explosives, and then cover the earth again. Sometimes you could see the ground sink a little as the end of the tunnel disappeared.
“Some of the tunnels were over six feet high and easily high enough for someone to walk through. One was discovered by another team, which was wide enough for a small pickup to drive past.
‘I was surprised by the size and number of them. They were in homes and mosques. In one house we found Hamas recruitment kites and combat equipment.
‘I think they were very similar to what the US found in Vietnam, it made it easy for the enemy to move themselves and their weapons around undetected.
‘It also gave them the opportunity to ambush us, because you don’t know if they have the only access to a tunnel – there could be another in the building next door. We came under fire under such circumstances in the middle of a residential area. Fortunately, we did not suffer any casualties, but other teams did.’
Major Omri Attar, 37, a father of three, spoke to MailOnline from Gaza, where he is serving as a reservist.
In 2014, he was a company commander in a special operations unit that came under fire several times while destroying tunnels in Gaza.
He said: ‘Infantry units are well trained to look for signals such as a vent, often using an electric fan to ‘suck’ air into the tunnel.
‘They are usually hidden in the basement of a house, mosque or farm with a booby-trapped metal door. The deepest tunnels were up to 40 meters underground and were always reinforced with concrete.’
He said military tunnels had been known for decades, dating back to World War II and Vietnam.
A Palestinian tunnel digger holds a lamp as he makes his way through a smuggling tunnel in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, in this photo taken on August 8, 2007
An Israeli soldier stands guard next to an entrance to what the Israeli army says is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza to Israel near Kissufim on January 18, 2018
‘The big advantage of using tunnels is mobilizing your forces. It gives the terrorist the opportunity to attack from behind and then run away.
The downside is that they try to run through a tunnel with heavy weapons, which increases the chance that they will be taken out by the IDF.”
Asked about ‘sponge bombs’ – a new weapon being used by the Israelis to disable and block tunnels, Major Attar simply said: ‘There are many different types of equipment and creative solutions to clear a tunnel, off to close and bomb. It.
“Many infantry units implement various measures to deal with whatever they encounter on the battlefield.”