Israel admits to invicibility of Hamas, likens Gaza tunnels to ‘spider web’
Israel admitted that it has failed to completely understand the “spider web” of the underground tunnel network developed by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip after over nine months of devastating war on the besieged territory.
Israeli Channel 12 in a report on Saturday cited unnamed Israeli officials and officers saying that the tunnels have enabled Hamas to carry out “an organized defensive battle” against the Israeli military.
“It’s like a spider web, if you cut one tunnel, alternative tunnels will automatically appear and this can continue,” said one of the unnamed officials.
“We still do not have a complete understanding of the tunnel network, and we lack a firm and absolute control over the entire tunnel project,” another official was quoted as saying by Channel 12.
The Israeli channel also cited other sources as saying that Hamas fighters have effectively used these tunnels to launch surprise attacks, managing to disappear underground and strike simultaneously from multiple locations.
They added that the Palestinian resistance group uses the tunnels to move forces and logistical equipment throughout Gaza, suggesting that dismantling the network and restoring security would require a prolonged and sustained conflict.
“When the ground invasion of the Strip began on Oct. 27, 2023, the Israeli army encountered Hamas’s capability to conduct an organized defensive battle from underground,” the report added, quoting an unnamed officer, not disclosing their name or rank.
Hamas is estimated to have built more than 360 kilometers of underground passages in Gaza for defensive purposes.
One of the objectives of the Israeli regime’s onslaught on the enclave since October last year was the destruction of the labyrinthine structure.
Tunnels built by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip have made Israel’s victory in its genocidal war on the besieged strip “less certain,” according to the Foreign Policy.
The Israeli regime, however, has admitted to its lack of comprehensive knowledge of the Hamas tunnel system over the past nine months.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Friday that the “Atlantis Project,” an expensive Israeli military plan to flood Gaza’s tunnels with seawater, was a “lost” and failed.
“It turns out that Atlantis is lost; it’s no longer in use, and nobody in the army can say what benefit, if any, was gained from this expensive project,” the report said.
Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Nonetheless, more than nine months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives in Gaza, killing nearly 39,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
