The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed to have uncovered a Hamas tunnel so massive “vehicles could drive through” it. The military said one of the exit points of this structure is located just 400 metres south of the Erez border crossing, a checkpoint between Israel and the Gaza Strip that Hamas militants overran during the October 7 terror attack.
The exit point of this tunnel, the largest yet found by the military forces during their ground operation in Gaza, was concealed in a sand dune, the IDF claimed.
Showing what the force addressed as a Hamas flagship tunnel, the military claimed it runs down diagonally to a depth of 50m, where it expands to 3m in height and width.
IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, without specifying whether the military knew if Hamas had used this tunnel to carry out its harrowing terror attack on Israel in early October, said of the structure: “Millions of dollars were invested in this tunnel. It took years to build this tunnel… Vehicles could drive through.”
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The tunnel, which appears to be equipped with ventilation and electricity systems, could be around 4 kilometres long, the Israeli military have claimed. This would mean the wide tunnel would link the crossing point to northern Gaza City, believed to have been the headquarters of Hamas before Israel razed the area with airstrikes and launched a ground operation.
Hamas is believed to have adopted a large network of tunnels underneath Gaza to move freely around the Strip, conduct its military operations and smuggle goods and weapons.
The IDF claimed this tunnel system was “a project led by Mohammad Sinwar, the brother of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, and the commander of Hamas’ Khan Yunis Battalion”.
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Tunnels previously uncovered by the IDF were much narrower and lower than the one shown to the press on the weekend.
Claims about this tunnel came at a difficult time for the IDF. On Friday, soldiers of the force mistakenly killed three Israeli hostages – Yotam Haim, 28, Samer Talalka, 22, and Alon Shamriz, 26 – in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City.
The men emerged shirtless from a building, with one carrying a stick with a white cloth, according to an Israeli military official. Two of the hostages were immediately killed after one of the soldiers felt threatened and declared them “terrorists” before opening fire. The third, wounded, returned to the building he had come from and pleaded for help in Hebrew before he died.
Sharing more details about the incident, the IDF said on Sunday that a search of the building had revealed the messages “SOS” and “Help, 3 hostages” had been written on fabric.
Hamas captured more than 230 people during its deadly rampage on October 7, and is believed to be still holding some 120 hostages in the wake of the waves of hostage releases carried out during a recent ceasefire.
Since the end of the truce, heavy fighting resumed, further worsening the humanitarian crisis unfolding for civilians in the Strip. On Sunday, hungry and desperate Palestinians were seen jumping onto aid trucks bringing through Egypt foods and essentials into the territory to pull the goods down and pass them off to the nearby crowds.
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