The Israeli army admitted on Tuesday that it had flooded tunnels belonging to the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip to destroy them as militants were hiding there, as well as bases for monitoring attacks and weapons. To accomplish this task, the troops must They drain “large amounts of water” into underground structures.
The flooding “is among the means used to neutralize the threat posed by Hamas’ underground tunnel network,” the army said in a statement, acknowledging for the first time a practice about which there were strong rumors. Said pump water “It was only carried out on the routes and locations that were suitable for it”add the document.
The Israeli Defense Forces say they have examined the location of the wells and the properties of the subsoil in order not to damage the groundwater supply through these pumps. The families of the 136 hostages still held in Gaza showed fear of this practice from the start, which has now been confirmed could also endanger the prisoners, who are suspected of being held in these structures.
It is estimated that Hamas has established a network of more than 500 members 480 kilometers of tunnels throughout the Palestinian enclave, and that only a tiny portion of it was destroyed in the nearly four months of the Israeli offensive. On Monday, Israeli forces said they had found a military base in a tunnel just over a kilometer long from which a Hamas commando was entering Jan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip would have monitored attacks.
The network of tunnels was originally designed to bypass the blockade Israel imposed on the Gaza Strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, allowing people, goods and weapons to flow between the enclave and Egypt. After the military conflict between Israel and Hamas in 2014, the network expanded and the Islamist movement began firing rockets against Israel.