Posted on 09/02/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
A Hamas handbook detailing its tunnel warfare strategy explains how the terrorist organization has managed to survive eleven months of war against superior Israeli forces, according to a report by the New York Times.
The 2019 document describes in great detail the tactics and strategies Hamas commanders were instructed to use in order to take full advantage of the hundreds of miles of tunnels dug under the Gaza Strip.
Another document showed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar approved a $225,000 project to install blast doors to protect vulnerable sections of the tunnel network a year before the October 7 massacre.
According to the report, prior to the massacre, Israel focused on tunnels that were dug under the border with Gaza but largely ignored the tunnels being dug entirely within Gaza, allowing Hamas to build a vast network it has used to avoid unwanted confrontations, stage ambushes, travel in secret, and hide many of the approximately 250 hostages who were kidnapped on October 7.
Experts said that this vast tunnel network is the reason Israel has not yet succeeded in its stated goal of dismantling Hamas, as the terrorist group's forces would stand little chance against the IDF if they were forced to fight entirely aboveground.
The handbook contains instructions on how to camouflage tunnel entrances to hide them from Israeli forces and allow for ambushes, how to use firearms effectively in the narrow corridors of a tunnel, and in the use of night-vision goggles to aid with combat in dark tunnels.
The IDF has attempted to avoid playing into Hamas' hands by engaging in combat in the tunnels. As a result, most of the fighting has taken place aboveground where the Israeli forces have the advantage, and Hamas has suffered serious losses among its leadership and fighting ranks.
About 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed, with thousands more injured over the course of the war, according to figures provided by the IDF. The terroris
Yahya Sinwar is believed to be hiding in one of the remaining Hamas tunnels, possibly surrounding himself with Israeli hostages he is using as human shields.
In July, Mohammed Deif, the Commander of Hamas' Military Wing, and second in command to Sinwar, was eliminated in an IDF airstrike in Khan Yunis.