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The Israeli military mentioned Tuesday it’s channelling water into Gaza’s tunnels in a bid to destroy the sprawling underground community utilized by Hamas militants to launch assaults on Israel.
“It’s a part of a variety of instruments deployed by the IDF (Israeli military) to neutralise the specter of Hamas’s subterranean community of tunnels,” the army mentioned in an announcement, confirming media studies.
Dubbed “the Gaza metro” by the Israeli military, there have been 1,300 tunnels over 500 kilometres in Gaza firstly of the warfare in October, in keeping with a research from US army academy West Level.
The army vowed to destroy them within the wake of Hamas’s October 7 assault in southern Israel that resulted within the deaths of round 1,140 folks, principally civilians, in keeping with an AFP tally primarily based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 hostages had been additionally dragged to Gaza through the October 7 assault, of which round 132 are nonetheless held captive, together with our bodies of not less than 28 folks believed to have been killed.
For the reason that Hamas assault, Israel has launched a withering air, land and sea offensive in Gaza that has killed not less than 26,751 folks, principally girls and youngsters, in keeping with the well being ministry within the territory.
The Israeli military says that many hostages taken by Hamas have been or proceed to be held within the huge community of tunnels.
In December, some Israeli media reported the army was leaning in the direction of flooding the tunnels with seawater pumped from the Mediterranean.
However consultants had warned the choice was harmful and poses large dangers to Gaza’s besieged civilians.
“It’ll trigger extreme injury to the already fragile water and sewage infrastructure that is in Gaza,” the then UN humanitarian coordinator for Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, had warned in December.
“There’s even a threat to buildings and roads collapsing due to the elevated strain and infiltration of sea water into Gaza.”
On Tuesday, the military mentioned it had taken care in a method as to not “injury the realm’s groundwater”.
“The pumping of water was solely carried out in tunnel routes and places that had been appropriate, matching the strategy of operation to every case,” it mentioned.
“This software is considered one of a variety of capabilities developed by the IDF and Israel’s safety institution lately so as to function in opposition to Hamas’ underground infrastructure within the Gaza Strip.”
The maze of tunnels was initially used to bypass Israel’s devastating blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas got here to energy in 2007, permitting the smuggling of individuals, items and weaponry out and in of Egypt.
It prolonged the community after the 2014 Israel-Hamas warfare and makes use of them to emerge throughout Gaza to launch rocket assaults on Israel.
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