Israel used robots and explosives to attack tunnels in Gaza.

Israel believes a large underground Hamas command center is operating in tunnels beneath the hospital, and on Thursday evening they said the military had found a tunnel and vehicles carrying weapons inside the hospital complex.

Israel finds underground tunnel beneath Gaza's largest hospital, uses robots and explosives to attack (Figure 1). — Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari shows a tunnel at a location in Gaza. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli military stated: “At Shifa Hospital, the IDF found an active tunnel and a vehicle containing a large quantity of weapons.” The Israeli military also released videos and images showing the tunnel and weapons.

They also said the body of an Israeli woman, one of about 240 hostages taken by Hamas militants, had been found by the military in a building near the hospital. Military equipment, including Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, was also found in the building.

At another hospital, after locating what they described as an entrance to a Hamas tunnel beneath, Israeli military engineers sealed the passageway with explosive gel. Surveillance video shows the explosion engulfing the building and sending smoke billowing from at least three points along a nearby street in a district of the city of Beit Hanoun.

A military officer told reporters at a press conference at the Zeelim Ground Forces Base in southern Israel: "The gel spreads and explodes whatever is waiting for us in the tunnel."

Clearing the tunnels is a crucial part of Israel's military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response to the Palestinian militant group's deadly October 7 attack on Israel.

Israel finds underground tunnel beneath Gaza's largest hospital, uses robots and explosives to attack (Figure 2). — Israeli soldiers approach the entrance to a tunnel during the landing operation in Gaza. Photo: Israeli Ministry of Defence .

Due to the mysterious tunnel system stretching hundreds of kilometers underground in Gaza, the Israeli military has opted to use surveillance robots and other remote-controlled technologies.

The Israeli officer did not name the hospital in Beit Hanoun and added that some gunmen had stormed the Israeli army from tunnels and were killed. He said, “We didn’t want to go down there. We knew that they had left us a lot of improvised explosive devices.”

One such bomb, attached to the lid of a tunnel leading to an underground tunnel, killed four Israeli special forces reservists last week.

Security sources say Hamas has tunnels for attacks, smuggling, and storage. Dozens of tunnel entrances can lead to each tunnel, which is located at a depth of 20 to 80 meters. The Israeli military said last week that 130 tunnels have been destroyed so far, but did not give a number for the total number of tunnels destroyed.

The officer said that several tons of explosive gel – but declined to provide any technical details, other than saying that they were transported by truck – were needed for every few hundred meters of the tunnel.

Post-action analysis is difficult. The officer said that about half of the tunnels in the Israeli military's operational area in Beit Hanoun were destroyed but acknowledged that these tunnels could be rebuilt. "It's hard to say how many tunnels were destroyed because they're all interconnected," he said.

He added that the captured Palestinian gunmen had provided Israel with intelligence about the tunnel network, but this information was limited. “Most of them didn’t know the whole city. But they knew their village, they knew pretty well about the tunnel system there,” the officer said.

He added that it could take several months to destroy the entire underground network in Gaza. "I think it's more complicated than the New York City subway," he said.

Hamas has denied using hospitals as cover for such tunnels. They reject Israel's claim that they have a command center beneath Al Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza.

Hoang Anh (according to Reuters)

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