The Israeli military issued a press release on the 30th, saying that the Israeli army used flooded tunnels in military operations in the Gaza Strip to force Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) fighters to show up. This is the first time that the Israeli army has publicly acknowledged the use of flooded tunnels in military operations.
Zhao Bing: According to the statement, the Israeli military, the Israeli Ministry of Defense and other departments have jointly developed a new technology to inject seawater into underground tunnels through pumps and pipelines. This is the first time that the Israeli army has officially acknowledged the use of flooded underground tunnels in military operations. At the beginning of December last year, the United States** disclosed that the Israeli army had built seven large water pumps in the northern Gaza Strip and poured a large amount of seawater into the Hamas underground tunnels. However, the Israeli side has never acknowledged this.
According to NBC's recent disclosure, a group of coastal areas of the Gaza Strip showed that in November last year, a black pipeline laid by the Israeli army appeared here. At the beginning of the conflict in early October last year, there were no pipelines here. In the ** released by the Israel Defense Forces, the pipelines laid by the Israeli army along the Gaza coast can also be seen.
In total, Hamas and other groups have excavated at least 500 kilometers of tunnels in the Gaza Strip, according to local Israeli sources. Hamas militants can use tunnels to transfer people, process people, carry out attacks, etc. Previously, the Israeli army claimed that after its ground offensive, it had destroyed hundreds of tunnel shafts by blasting and other means, but according to the Israeli ** quoting the United States**, the Israeli army's actions did not cause decisive damage to Hamas's underground facilities, and even most of the underground tunnels are still usable. At the same time, the Israeli army has been reluctant to directly send tactical troops deep into the tunnels, considering that direct combat deep underground could lead to the loss of firepower superiority and booby traps. As a result, the Israeli army has been facing frequent attacks from Hamas fighters, even though it has been conducting military operations on the ground for nearly four months.
The use of flooded tunnels has raised concerns from many quarters.
However, the use of flooded tunnels has raised concerns and warnings from many quarters. First, UN hydrologists and environmental experts have warned that the use of seawater would contaminate Gaza's already limited freshwater** and severely damage local agriculture, causing environmental catastrophe.
Tamer Kalmut, Public Policy Specialist, Doha Graduate School, Qatar: This would bring an environmental catastrophe to the Gaza Strip and a catastrophic impact on the local drinking water.
Zhao Bing: Secondly, given that some of the Israeli detainees are likely to remain hidden in the tunnels, this approach would endanger the lives of those involved. In early December, Israeli detainees told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they feared that the flooding of the tunnels could lead to the deaths of the rest of the detainees. In addition, the practical effect of flooding may be limited, as it can only be used in Hamas underground tunnels near the Gaza coast, when in fact Hamas's underground network is large, and many underground tunnels are equipped with blast doors and other barriers, which may greatly reduce the impact of flooding in Israel.
Scott Savitz, Senior Engineer, RAND Corporation of the United States: There are a lot of separate tunnelling projects scattered throughout the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli side may have more or less obtained some information, including the extent to which the tunnels are connected to each other, or whether they are in some areas. Water simply cannot flow from one tunnel to another, and (flooded tunnels) is never as simple as opening a water pipe.