On Saturday, the IDF announced that it had recently discovered an underground lair in southern Gaza where hostages had been held. This news follows reports that the subterranean network, built with North Korean technical assistance, is far more extensive and complex than Israeli intelligence had estimated—likely totaling between 350 and 450 miles in length. Hamas operatives continue to build shafts leading into the tunnels, even as the IDF continues to destroy them. John Spencer explains the purpose of these passageways, and the challenge they pose:
The sheer size of Hamas’s underground networks may, once fully discovered, be beyond anything a modern military has ever faced. . . . For the first time in the history of tunnel warfare, . . . Hamas has built a tunnel network to gain not just a military advantage, but a political advantage as well. . . . Hamas weaved its vast tunnel networks into the society on the surface. Destroying the tunnels is virtually impossible without having an adverse effect on the population living in Gaza.
Hamas’s strategy is . . . not to hold terrain or defeat an attacking force. Its strategy is about time. It is about creating time for international pressure on Israel to stop its military operation to mount. . . . It wants the world’s attention on the question of whether the IDF campaign is violating the laws of war in attacking Hamas tunnels that are tightly connected to civilian and protected sites. It wants to buy as much time as is needed to cause the international community to stop Israel. Its entire strategy is built on tunnels.
Arguably, no military in the world is as well prepared for subterranean tactical challenges as the IDF. But the strategic challenge is entirely different. To destroy many of the deep-buried tunnels, the IDF has required bunker-busting bombs, which Israel is criticized for using. And most importantly it has required time to find and destroy the tunnels in a conflict in which Hamas’s strategy is aimed at limiting the time available to Israel to conduct its campaign.
Hamas’s strategy, then, is founded on tunnels and time.
Read more on Modern War Institute: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/gazas-underground-hamass-entire-politico-military-strategy-rests-on-its-tunnels/