Of all military infrastructure unveiled during the last confrontation with Hamas, reviling a leap forward in the group’s readiness for combat, perhaps the most memorable will be the excavation of an intricate network of tunnels dubbed in Israeli media “the underground city of Hamas”.
The thousands of meters that comprise this “city”, lined with concrete, lit up, and interconnected by phone lines, sheltered Hamas combatants against Israeli air strikes, used for storage of weapons and supplies, and most importantly – to launch a series of attack behind Israeli lines that caused severe casualties to the unsuspecting Israeli troops.
Exactly four years ago I published a cover story in Yedioth Aharonot about Hamas tunnelling efforts, highlighting Israeli MOD’s long lasting failure to support the development of effective measure to detect and destroy these tunnels. At the time, the MOD claimed that piece was completely off track, as tunnels are not a severe threat, and a solution is already in advanced development stages.
As this issue now seems the prime subject for a national commission of inquiry to come, Ynet News, the group’s internet branch, just published a summary of our reporting over the last four years as well as some new details about this topic.
Here is the link to it on YnetNews.com