Watan-In a new indication of the failure of the occupation army in the sector, The Wall Street Journal, citing American and Israeli officials, revealed that about 80% of the tunnels belonging to the Islamic Resistance Movement, “Hamas,” in the Gaza Strip remain intact.
This comes despite many weeks of attempts to destroy them by the occupation army (during the war on Gaza).
The newspaper reported that officials in Washington and Tel Aviv are struggling to make an accurate assessment of the level of destruction of the tunnel network.
According to the officials quoted by the newspaper without mentioning their names, this is partly due to their inability to accurately determine the extent and expanse of these tunnels underground.
Officials from the United States and Israel estimate that between 20% and 40% of Hamas tunnels have been damaged or become unfit for operation, most of them in northern Gaza.
How did Israel attempt to destroy the tunnels?
The newspaper explained that Israel sought to “purge” 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.
Sea water has led to the erosion of some of these tunnels, but the overall effort was not as effective as expected, as walls, barriers, and other unexpected defenses slowed or stopped the flow of water.
The newspaper pointed out that Israel has specialized engineering units with engineers trained to destroy tunnels, not to search for prisoners and senior leaders of the Hamas movement, noting that Israel needs more forces to destroy these tunnels.