Why Israel Will Never Send Troops Into Hamas Tunnels

Israeli soldiers discovered a Hamas tunnel in the Gaza border area (Photo: Reuters).

“There is no need to put troops in the tunnels. Putting troops in the tunnels would be a serious mistake,” said Yair Golan, former deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Video released by the IDF on November 2 shows Israeli soldiers fighting in the streets of Gaza, with soldiers taking cover in a building in response to gunfire from across the street.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the Israeli army's ground operation in Gaza was proceeding as planned.

"The army continues to break through Hamas' defense lines in the northern Gaza Strip and take control of central areas. We are intensifying our actions and progressing according to our plans and goals," Hagari said.

According to open source data, as of November 2, the Israeli military may be just a few kilometers away from isolating northern Gaza from the rest. Israeli forces have also been seen advancing along the Gaza border, fueling speculation that Israel may be seeking to establish a buffer zone there.

Hamas has built a spiderweb-like network of tunnels hundreds of meters deep in Gaza. The network is believed to have begun in the mid-1990s, when Israel granted Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization some autonomy in Gaza. They quickly gave Hamas power in the Gaza Strip relative to the Israeli military presence in the West Bank.

“It is very difficult to map this tunnel network accurately from the surface or from space,” said Professor Joel Roskin, a geologist from Israel's Bar-Ilan University.

The tunnels contain bunkers, headquarters, and weapons depots and are connected to more than 1,000 rocket launch sites, according to a source. They also serve as fortified defenses.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-gioi/ly-do-israel-se-khong-bao-gio-dua-quan-vao-duong-ham-cua-hamas-20231103161755360.htm