Israel floods Hamas attack tunnels
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army said Tuesday it was flooding Hamas’ attack tunnels amid intense fighting in Gaza, even as international mediators pushed for a new halt in the nearly four-month war.
The epicenter of the fighting has been Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s main city where vast areas have been reduced to a muddy wasteland of bombed-out buildings.
The Israeli military said it had adopted the tactic of channeling water into Hamas’ vast underground network of tunnels that it has dubbed “the Gaza metro.”
“It is part of a range of tools deployed by the IDF (Israeli army) to neutralize the threat of Hamas’ subterranean network of tunnels,” the military said in a statement, confirming media reports.
At the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October, there were 1,300 tunnels over 500 kilometers in Gaza, according to a study from US military academy West Point.
The military vowed to destroy them in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 hostages were also dragged to Gaza during the Oct. 7 attack, of which around 132 are still held captive, including bodies of at least 28 people believed to have been killed.
Since the Hamas attack, Israel has launched a withering air, land and sea offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 26,751 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory.
The Israeli army says that many hostages taken by Hamas have been or continue to be held in the vast network of tunnels.