Israel army says it’s flooding Gaza tunnels to halt Hamas attacks
- The vast network is used by militants to launch their attacks, and the IDF says hostages continue to be held underground
- Experts have warned that flooding the tunnels poses huge risks to Gaza’s besieged civilians, threatening water and sewage infrastructure
The Israeli army said Tuesday it is channelling water into Gaza’s tunnels in a bid to destroy the sprawling underground network used by Hamas militants to launch attacks on Israel.
“It is part of a range of tools deployed by the IDF [Israeli army] to neutralise the threat of Hamas’s subterranean network of tunnels,” the military said in a statement, confirming media reports.
Dubbed “the Gaza metro” by the Israeli army, there were 1,300 tunnels over 500km (310 miles) in Gaza at the start of the war in October, according to a study from US military academy West Point.
The military vowed to destroy them in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 hostages were also dragged to Gaza during the October 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.