Israel Has Long Tried to Destroy Hamas 'Metro'.

"Israel has a long and complicated history with tunnels in Gaza.

Gazans first started digging tunnels in the late 1990s for smuggling from Egypt, according to Amir Avivi, a former Israeli deputy commander overseeing Gaza. He started as a junior officer in the enclave and uncovered about 30 tunnels in about two years.

Hamas eventually began using tunnels for offensive operations. In 2004, Palestinians set off a bomb inside a passageway dug under a military base on the edge of a block of Jewish settlements. Israel withdrew from Gaza a year later.

In 2006, Hamas used a tunnel to capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was released five years later in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian and Arab prisoners. One of those exchanged was Yahya Sinwar, the current Hamas leader in Gaza, whom Israel says was the architect behind the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

Hamas's military chief in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, was one of the group's leaders who gave priority to tunnel building, according to Palestinians with knowledge of Hamas's thinking.

The militants used tunnels linking Gaza to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to import cash, guns and materials for constructing weapons, said former Israeli and U.S. officials. Egypt later joined Israel in cracking down on tunnel smuggling.

The stifling of Hamas's smuggling network helped lead to a major outbreak of hostilities in 2014, when the Israeli military discovered dozens of cross-border passageways from Gaza. Their sophistication surprised Israelis: One tunnel had a 165-foot-deep entry shaft and stretched about 2 miles underground before emerging above the ground near a kibbutz in Israel. Its arched concrete roof was about 5 feet high. Telephone and electric wires, along with rails for ferrying goods, ran its length.

The discovery of the tunnel network was so significant that Israel's stated war aims shifted from stopping Palestinian rocket fire to destroying the underground passages.

Inside the tunnels, the military said it found rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, AK-47 assault rifles and motorcycles -- evidence that Israeli officials said showed Hamas intended to kidnap and kill Israelis. "When we finished the operation in 2014, there was a very clear understanding in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) that we need to take this threat much more seriously," Avivi said.

The Israeli military started to invest in training for combat in tunnels -- technology to detect and map them, and ways to destroy them. It built an underground barrier around Gaza and invested in a system to detect tunnel digging called "the Obstacle," The Wall Street Journal reported.

At the same time, Hamas made fortifying inside Gaza a priority. It hired more employees in its military wing to build tunnels, according to Palestinian political analysts who have followed the development of tunnels. They estimate thousands of Gazans were hired, with some dying in collapsed passageways.

Hamas and Israel again fought an 11-day conflict in 2021. The militant group began firing rockets from Gaza following clashes between Israeli authorities and Palestinians at one of Islam's holiest sites in Jerusalem. In response, the Israeli military launched airstrikes on the tunnel network, describing it as the Hamas "metro." The bombing caused entire buildings to collapse. After a cease-fire, Gaza's streets were dotted with craters caused by strikes aimed at tunnels below.

Those airstrikes don't appear to have permanently damaged Hamas's ability to use the tunnels, which likely were reconstructed around areas damaged by bombing, military analysts said." [1]

1. World News: Israel Has Long Tried to Destroy Hamas 'Metro'. Jones, Rory.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 18 Nov 2023: A.8.