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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Sunday that its 36th Division troops and the elite Yahalom unit of the Combat Engineering Corps have uncovered and dismantled four Hamas terror tunnels in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis over the past month.
According to the IDF statement, the operation was conducted east of the Yellow Line and carried out in accordance with the US-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The mission aimed to locate and destroy underground and above-ground terrorist infrastructure used by Hamas to launch attacks against Israeli soldiers operating in the region.
In addition to the four tunnel routes, soldiers from the 7th Brigade and the Golani Brigade, both operating under the 36th Division, dismantled dozens of Hamas infrastructure sites containing large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
The IDF emphasized that the dismantling process included both subterranean tunnels and surface-level strongholds, significantly weakening Hamas’s operational capabilities in the area.
“The dismantling of these tunnels prevents Hamas from regrouping and carrying out future attacks,” an IDF spokesperson said. “Neutralizing underground threats is a crucial step in restoring security and stability to southern Israel.”
Separately, the IDF’s 10th Brigade reported on Sunday that it had killed dozens of terrorists and dismantled several additional tunnels during operations behind the Yellow Line, also in Khan Yunis. These ongoing efforts, the military said, are part of a larger campaign to eliminate all remaining Hamas tunnel networks throughout Gaza.
Defense Minister Israel Katz reiterated on Saturday that dismantling Hamas’s vast tunnel infrastructure remains a top national priority. Speaking to reporters, Katz said the IDF’s operations in the so-called “yellow zone” are designed to prevent Hamas from reconstituting its underground network during the ceasefire.
“Destroying Hamas’s tunnels is Israel’s strategic super goal,” Katz stated. “Over 60% of the tunnels remained undestroyed after the war, and it is our mission to ensure they can never again be used to threaten Israel.”
Military analysts describe the tunnels as a central component of Hamas’s military strategy, providing covert routes for movement, storage, and surprise attacks. Their destruction, therefore, is seen as critical to achieving lasting security in the region.
As IDF engineering units continue operations in southern Gaza, the dismantling of terror tunnels remains a defining feature of Israel’s post-war objectives—balancing compliance with ceasefire conditions while maintaining firm control over security threats emerging from beneath the surface.