JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli forces uncovered a community of tunnels working deep beneath central Gaza Metropolis from properties registered to Yahya Sinwar and different senior Hamas organizers of the Oct. 7 assaults on Israel, the army stated on Wednesday.
The tunnels had been discovered when troopers secured a central space of the town in current days, spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner instructed reporters.
Accessed by spiral staircases and an elevator as much as 20 meters (66 ft) beneath floor, the tunnels had been kitted out with electrical energy, plumbing, surveillance cameras and heavy blast doorways, in accordance with photographs shared with reporters by the army.
“This advanced, each above and beneath floor, was a centre of energy for Hamas’ army and political wings,” Lerner stated. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the knowledge supplied.
The tunnels had been utilized by senior Hamas officers together with Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif to direct operations and for “protected day by day motion” by way of the center of Gaza Metropolis, the army stated in an announcement.
Israeli accuses the militant group of intentionally finding tunnels and different army infrastructure amongst civilians whom it makes use of as human shields.
Hamas, which rejects the accusation, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Sinwar and Deif are believed to be the masterminds behind the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assaults that killed 1,200 folks and triggered an Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed round 20,000 folks and compelled many of the 2.3 million inhabitants to flee their houses.
Israel has the acknowledged purpose of destroying Hamas and rescuing greater than 130 folks nonetheless held hostage by the Palestinian Islamist militants.
Israel has but to seek out the leaders regardless of taking management of some elements of Gaza. Israel’s intense air and floor marketing campaign has injured greater than 50,000 folks and laid waste to a lot of the coastal enclave.
Hamas has lengthy boasted that its tunnel community is a whole bunch of kilometres (miles) lengthy. Some shafts are to 80 metres deep and had been described by one freed hostage as “a spider’s internet”.
The group’s tunnels beneath the sandy 360 sq km coastal strip and its borders embody assault, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Center East sources conversant in the matter have stated.
Earlier this week, Israel stated it uncovered an unusually giant concrete and iron-girded tunnel designed to hold carloads of militant fighters from Gaza proper as much as the border.
(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Modifying by James Mackenzie and Daniel Wallis)
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