Hits against Hamas possible
Israel’s military chief: flooding Hamas tunnels “good idea”
December 5, 2023, 9:56 p.m
Fire or water could be used to destroy Hamas tunnels to drive terrorists from hiding. Israel’s army is currently favoring flooding the underground facilities. It hasn’t started yet, but the Chief of General Staff is in favor of it.
Israel’s chief of staff has described the idea of flooding the Islamist Hamas’ extensive tunnel system under the Gaza Strip with seawater as a good idea. However, Herzi Halevi said in response to a question from journalists that he did not want to go into more detail about it. The army is encountering a lot of underground infrastructure in the sealed-off coastal strip, he said. “We knew there were a lot of them. One goal is to destroy them.”
According to Halevi, there are different ways to do this. He did not want to go into individual considerations or measures. However, he said: “Any measure that increases our advantage over the enemy emerging from the underground and denies him that advantage is a measure which we seriously consider adopting.” This also includes destroying the tunnels with explosions in order to prevent Hamas terrorists from using them.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had assembled a system of large pumps that could flood the Hamas network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater. The Israeli armed forces completed the assembly of large seawater pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in mid-November, it said. Each of the at least five pumps could draw water from the Mediterranean and pump thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper, citing US government officials, writes that it is not certain whether the Israeli government wants to use this tactic. Israel has neither made a final decision nor ruled out such a plan, the officials were quoted as saying. There is concern that there may be abducted hostages there. Experts also raised concerns that flooding with seawater could have dramatic consequences for the environment.