Watan-The Israeli admissions of failure in achieving any military accomplishments in the ongoing war led by the occupation army in the Gaza Strip, including the destruction of Gaza tunnels, have continued.
The Israeli army radio reported that the “Atlantis” system, designed to flood tunnels with seawater, only managed to destroy a few kilometers of them in the Gaza Strip.
The radio quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying, “We entered the war without a decisive solution to the tunnel issue.”
Extremely limited capability in tunnel destruction
They added, “The Atlantis system was unable to flood Hamas tunnels and could only destroy a few kilometers of the tunnels.”
It was noted that in the northern Gaza Strip, the system was only partially successful, especially in tunnels close to the sea.
However, whenever the tunnels were far from the sea, Israel found it difficult to flow water under high pressure through the pipes, according to the same sources.
إسرائيل تقر أن نظام “أتلانتس” لم يدمر سوى بضعة كيلومترات من أنفاق #غزة pic.twitter.com/LwH0RB5Lbh
— التلفزيون العربي (@AlarabyTV) January 31, 2024
In the central region, there was a very limited attempt to activate the system, but it failed completely.
In Khan Younis, the occupation army did not attempt to activate the system at all because it was operating in the eastern areas, the radio reported.
80% of Gaza tunnels still intact
The “Wall Street Journal” had reported statements from American and Israeli officials, saying that about 80% of Hamas movement tunnels in the Gaza Strip remained intact after weeks of Israeli attempts to destroy them.
The newspaper said that officials in Washington and Tel Aviv are having difficulty making an accurate assessment of the level of destruction of the tunnel network, partly due to their inability to precisely determine the area and extent of these tunnels underground.
It was pointed out that Israel sought to clear the tunnels through various methods, including installing massive pumps to flood them with seawater, destroying them with airstrikes and liquid explosives, inspecting them with dogs and robots, and destroying their entrances and raiding them by trained soldiers.
According to American and Israeli officials, seawater caused some of these tunnels to corrode, but the overall effort was not as effective as expected, as unexpected walls, barriers, and other defenses slowed or stopped the flow of water.