Palestinian tunnel warfare in the Gaza Strip

According to Iranian military officer Hassan Hassanzadeh, who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from Tehran, the Gaza Strip's tunnels run for more than 500 kilometres (310 mi) throughout the territory.

[5] The total size and dimensions of the Palestinian tunnel network in the Gaza Strip is unknown, with all parties involved keeping the details classified.

[6] Citing a private briefing in February 2015, Daniel Rubinstein wrote that Israel discovered 100 kilometres (62 mi) of tunnels during the 2014 Gaza War, one-third of which intruded upon Israeli territory;[9] Ynet's Alex Fishman reported the same figure in 2017.

[12] Typically, tunnel access points are hidden inside buildings, such as private homes or mosques, or camouflaged by brush, which impedes their detection via aerial imaging or drones.

[18] The engineering officer described "wide tunnels, with internal communication systems that had been dug deep beneath the surface and the sides were reinforced with layers of concrete" in which "[y]ou could walk upright in them without any difficulty.

"[20] The UNRWA said in a statement that the agency had "cordoned off the area and swiftly took the necessary measures to render the school safe, including permanently sealing the cavity.

According to Lifshitz, Hamas had prepared clean rooms with mattresses on the ground and the hostages received regular visits from doctors in their underground positions.

"[32] The Israeli military has provided estimates in 2014 that Hamas spent around $30 to $90 million, and poured 600,000 tons of concrete, in order to build three dozen tunnels.

Two people came up with the idea of digging these tunnels: The first is the martyred commander Imad Mughniyeh, and the second is Hajj Qasem Soleimani who went to Gaza more than once and contributed to the defense plan from the moment it was first drafted.

[42]Retired Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Ezzatollah Zarghami admitted in November 2023 of having visited and inspected the Gaza tunnels himself along with senior Hamas members, during his active service with the Quds Force: Fajr-3, which is a 240 mm rocket, was one of our products.

The tunnels that were being tug, and its relationship with the rest of the Islamic world, particularly those in Lebanon, particularly those in Iran, flourished, to such an extent that now, the so-called strongest army in West Asia still cannot defeat those people who have been starved for more than three months.

[45]During the November 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari said that due to the geographical isolation of the Gaza Strip, Iran cannot directly provide weapons to Hamas but still provides them with the technology and parts through the tunnels, which is then used by the al-Qassam Brigades to manufacture a Palestinian homemade version of the Iranian Fajr-5 missile that has managed to hit Israeli targets within Israel's capital Tel Aviv.

According to the center, tunnels conceal missile launchers, facilitate attacks on strategic targets like Ben-Gurion Airport, and allow cross-border access to Israeli territory.

"[51] An Al-Monitor report described tunnels within Gaza and away from the border that serve two purposes: storing and shielding weapons including rockets and launchers, and providing security and mobility to Hamas militants.

"[52] Twenty-three militants in the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, survived Israeli shelling on 17 July 2014 and remained alive but trapped in a tunnel until the early August ceasefire.

[53] In October 2013, Ihab al-Ghussein, spokesman of the Interior Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority, described the tunnels as an exercise of Gaza's "right to protect itself.

[56] In 2014, Hamas leader Khalid Meshal said in an interview with Vanity Fair that the tunnel system is a defensive structure, designed to place obstacles against Israel's powerful military arsenal and engage in counter-strikes behind the lines of the IDF.

[58][59] During Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, Palestinian militants frequently made use of tunnels and bunkers to take cover from Israeli air strikes.

"[61] The tunnels have been described by former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as representative of "a new strategy in confronting the occupation and in the conflict with the enemy from underground and from above the ground.

"[26] A Palestinian militia document obtained by al-Monitor and also published in The Washington Post described the objectives of the under-border tunnels: The tunnel war is one of the most important and most dangerous military tactics in the face of the Israeli army because it features a qualitative and strategic dimension, because of its human and moral effects, and because of its serious threat and unprecedented challenge to the Israeli military machine, which is heavily armed and follows security doctrines involving protection measures and preemption.

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the "sole purpose" of the cross-border tunnels from Gaza to Israel is "the destruction of our citizens and killing of our children."

[68][38] In June 2006, Hamas used a tunnel that exited near Kerem Shalom to conduct a cross-border raid that resulted in the death of two IDF soldiers and the kidnapping of a third, Gilad Shalit.

Israeli officials reported four "incidents in which members of Palestinian armed groups emerged from tunnel exits located between 1.1 and 4.7 km from civilian homes.

[105][106] A column in the Wall Street Journal cited Yigal Carmon, head of the Middle East Media Research Institute, as saying that it was the tunnels, and not the 2014 Gush Etzion kidnapping and murder that was the immediate cause of war in the summer of 2014.

[111] In May 2016, the IDF located a cross-border tunnel exiting near the area of Holit that had apparently been rebuilt as a bypass after initially being destroyed during Operation Protective Edge.

[115] Twelve Palestinians, including ten members of Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and two Hamas militants, were killed in the blast and subsequent rescue efforts.

Major General Eyal Zamir stated that more Hamas tunnels into Israel would be destroyed as the construction of a barrier around the Gaza Strip will soon be completed.

[123] In August 2018, the Israeli Ministry of Defense released the first pictures of an underwater barrier with Gaza designed to prevent Hamas infiltrations by sea.

[127] In October 2023, the Israeli Defense Forces were reported to be considering the use of sponge bombs as a non-lethal means of sealing tunnels during their incursion into the Gaza Strip.

In 2013, Egypt attempted to destroy certain tunnels along its Gaza border by filling them with sewage and demolishing houses that hid their entrances, according to Joel Roskin, a geology professor at Bar-Ilan University.