Jerusalem, 22 November, 2023 (TPS) — Israeli soldiers have destroyed 400 tunnels in Gaza in the past month, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Wednesday.
The Yahalom special forces unit of the Combat Engineering Corps has played a significant role in uncovering and destroying these shafts using various methods.
Hamas has embedded its network of terrorist tunnels below population centers across the Gaza Strip. Many of the shafts leading to its tunnel network are located within civilian hospitals, schools, homes, mosques and playgrounds.
On Tuesday, the military breached a blast door at the end of one tunnel underneath the Shifa Hospital.
Hamas has previously boasted of digging hundreds of kilometers of tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip, a network the Israeli military often refers to as the “Gaza Metro.”
Many more tunnels will be uncovered when the IDF begins an expected offensive in southern Gaza.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after at least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. Another 240 men, women, children and soldiers were taken back to Gaza as hostages. Some people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.
