The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it has completed the destruction and closing of Gaza’s largest Hamas assault tunnel, which was discovered in December during the military’s onslaught against the Palestinian terror group.
In recent weeks, the IDF stated that it worked to finish its study of the tunnel before destroying it.
The enormous conduit was part of Hamas’ massive network of tunnels beneath Gaza, which the IDF has been seeking to discover during the current conflict that began with the terror group’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7.
Combat engineers blew up parts of the tunnel, after which the IDF and Defense Ministry pumped concrete into the remaining underground channels.
The tunnel, which the IDF discovered to be around four kilometres (2.5 miles) long, descended about 50 meters (165 feet) down in certain parts and seemed to be broad enough for cars to travel through.
It did not penetrate Israeli land, but officials said it was meant for attacks rather than defensive positions or official transportation.
One of the shafts was discovered barely 400 meters (a quarter mile) from the Erez Crossing, which, prior to Hamas’ October 7 attack, allowed Palestinian citizens to enter Israel for employment and medical care.
According to the IDF, Muhammad Sinwar, commander of Hamas’ southern brigade and brother of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza leader, directed the tunnel project.
In its December statement, the military published video footage collected from the Gaza Strip of Muhammad Sinwar driving through the tunnel.
The tunnel was destroyed as the IDF continued to engage Hamas forces in Gaza amid a terrible humanitarian situation for the 2.3 million Palestinians caught up in the conflict, with the World Health Organization stating that hunger in northern Gaza is “particularly extreme.”
The IDF stated its 98th Division, which is stationed near the Hamad Town apartment complex in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, apprehended hundreds of terrorists over the last day.
The Division’s Commando Brigade had raided Hamas locations in the vicinity, seizing a considerable number of weapons.
The military claimed in a statement that forces supported the evacuation of people from the region throughout the last day, adding that they apprehended dozens of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization members who attempted to evacuate with the civilians.
The IDF has previously recorded similar incidences of Hamas fighters hiding among fleeing people, reinforcing Israel’s claims that the terror group embeds itself into the civilian population, employing them as human shields and increasing noncombatant losses.
Meanwhile, in central Gaza, the IDF said that the Nahal Infantry Brigade killed around 20 militants over the course of the day, including through sniper fire, tank shelling, and airstrikes.
The IDF claimed forces in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun launched an airstrike against a Hamas cell that was using a drone to attack soldiers.
An Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip points a rifle in a photo provided for publication by the IDF on March 5, 2024.
The Israeli Air Force struck more than 50 Hamas targets in Gaza during the last day, according to the statement. The objectives included rocket launchers, munitions stockpiles, underground shafts, and other infrastructure.
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry reported 97 deaths in the preceding day, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed since the conflict began to 30,631. It stated that a further 72,043 people had been hurt.
The figures cannot be confirmed and do not distinguish between fighters and civilians. They are believed to include those killed by errant Palestinian fire within the Strip.
Aside from the threat of constant fighting, Gazans are confronting severe shortages of basic goods, especially food.
According to Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for Gaza and the West Bank, one out of every six children under the age of two in northern Gaza were extremely malnourished earlier this year.
“It was in January. So the situation is going to worsen today,” Peeperkorn said.
According to UNICEF spokesperson James Elder, malnutrition rates for children under the age of five in northern Gaza, where access to aid has been severely curtailed since the beginning of the war, are three times higher than in Rafah, south.
Elder stated that this demonstrated how “when that trickle of aid can come in, it does make a life-saving difference.”
Calls for Israel to do more to address the humanitarian crisis have increased following an event last week in which Palestinians lined up for help in Gaza were murdered.
Over 100 people were killed in Gaza, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities, which blamed the killings on Israeli fire and described it as a massacre.
Israel claims numerous people were trampled or run over in a frenzy to reach food trucks and has promised to investigate.
In addition to hunger, infectious illnesses are becoming more prevalent, with nine out of ten children under the age of five — or around 220,000 — being ill in recent weeks, according to Elder.
“That becomes the spiral that we are so fearful of infectious diseases, a lack of food, a desperate lack of clean water, ongoing bombardment, and incredulously still discussion of an offensive into Rafah, which is a city of children,” Elder told reporters in Geneva, referring to Israel’s stated goal of rooting out Hamas battalions it claims are hiding there.
“Rafah has about three-quarters of a million children living there,” the Elder went on to say.
Last month, Israel increased its bombing of Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded, most of whom had left their homes further north to avoid conflict.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, one-quarter of Gaza’s population, 576,000 people, is one step away from starvation.
The supply of supplies to Gaza has been a source of dispute in the terrible five-month conflict, which was sparked by the extraordinary shock Hamas offensive on October 7, when hundreds of terrorists rampaged through southern Israeli villages, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 253 more.
Israel, which inspects all vehicles entering Gaza via both the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings, has accused the United Nations of not delivering relief quickly enough when it is certified, resulting in a general drop-off in supplies over the last month.
According to the UN, distributing supplies inside Gaza is getting increasingly difficult. According to UN data and authorities, the flow of aid from Egypt has nearly stopped in the last two weeks, and a breakdown in security has made it increasingly impossible to distribute the food that does make it through.
While additional trucks have arrived from Israel via the Kerem Shalom border, they have recently been stopped by families of Israeli captives and demonstrators attempting to obstruct delivery. Israel has consistently said that it is willing to speed up the clearance of supplies.
Prior to the battle with Hamas, Gaza relied on 500 trucks of supplies arriving every day.
“The sense of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors in realizing that lifesaving aid, just a few kilometres away, is being kept out of reach, must be unbearable,” said Adele Khodr, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Negotiations through international mediators for at least a brief pause in the war that would see captives released while humanitarian supplies come in have stalled, with a Hamas official claiming on Tuesday that a session of discussions with Egyptian authorities in Cairo had yielded no results.
This article was created using automation technology and was thoroughly edited and fact-checked by one of our editorial staff members