A video published Tuesday showed the destruction of a “strategic” Hamas tunnel by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) underneath a highway that connected north and south Gaza.
The IDF said the tunnel underneath the major highway was “hundreds of meters long and around nine meters deep.” It was used to transport Hamas fighters “undetected” between northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip, Emanuel Fabian, The Times of Israel military correspondent, tweeted Tuesday. (RELATED: IDF Releases Video Of Tunnel Complex Hamas Used To Hold Hostages)
The IDF reveals another Hamas tunnel under the Gaza Strip’s main north-south highway, this time in Nuseirat.
Troops of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, and other combat engineers, discovered and destroyed what the IDF says is a… pic.twitter.com/SN2c9tHIo8
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) January 16, 2024
The video shows the vast nature of the winding tunnel and its detonation by the IDF.
“Troops of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, and other combat engineers, discovered and destroyed what the IDF says is a “strategic” Hamas tunnel, located under Salah a-Din road,” Fabian reported. “Following the detonation of the tunnel below Salah a-Din road, the IDF says it has opened a new alternative route in the area.”
The IDF Twitter page also had a graphic about this tunnel that displayed the various shafts associated with it, its’ route and various landmarks around it.
DISMANTLED: A Hamas terrorist tunnel underneath the Salah al-Din Road, connecting
northern and southern Gaza.The route, which stretches for hundreds of meters and is approximately 9 meters deep, was used by Hamas for the transfer of terrorists from northern to southern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/sjACB56SuQ
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 16, 2024
Senior IDF officials estimated that the vast tunnel network constructed by Hamas in the 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip is between 350 miles and 450 miles long, The Times of Israel reported. This estimate was updated from a previous lower figure assessment of a 250 miles tunnel system.