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"Israeli forces are now operating, going from house to house looking for tunnel entrances, when they find one of those, they they usually destroy them." Hamas leadership is starting to fracture as IDF troops go from house to house, under intense mortar fire, blowing up tunnels, says Anshel Pffeffer who has been with IDF troops in Gaza reporting for The Times.

Israeli forces captured a Hamas stronghold following a 10-hour firefight as troops uncovered the terror group’s tunnel shafts, one of which Israeli officials say was located near a kindergarten. Troops from the 933rd Nahal Infantry Brigade, one of the five infantry brigades of the IDF, completed the takeover of Outpost 17 in northern Gaza, which Hamas previously ran. The troops battled Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad above and below ground, killing dozens of terrorists.According to a Thursday IDF statement, Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib, the head of Hamas’ Anti Tank Missile Unit in the Central Camps Brigade, died during the attack from an...

The IDF reportedly discovered "means of warfare unknown to the security system," including new rockets found by IDF engineering forces in Gaza laboratories... It was also revealed that during a recent raid on a Hamas training post, tunnels were reportedly discovered beneath the post. After exposing them, soldiers destroyed the shafts—which they believe had housed countless Hamas militants who prepared for extended stays underground based on extra water and oxygen supplies found there. They tend to stay underground because they lack the means to fight in surface combat... On Wednesday, the Channel TV news network in Israel reported that the...

The biggest problem confronting Israel in its war on Hamas is how to destroy the Gaza tunnel networks and the terrorist operations therein. Bombing works—mostly—but there’s a better way. Not only would it dramatically reduce Israeli military and Gazan civilian casualties, but it would effectively destroy the tunnel systems for the long term. That solution is to flood the tunnels with seawater from the adjacent Mediterranean. I worked on the Gaza Strip back in the 1990s. The U.S. government was pouring tens of millions of tax dollars into development assistance there on engineering infrastructure, housing, and related projects. Part of...

How do you know Hamas is on the ropes as Israeli forces continue to encircle Northern Gaza? Because they are making offers like this. According to a new report, the terrorist government has offered to release all the civilian hostages it took on October 7th in exchange for just a five-day pause in hostilities. Although the terms have varied in recent weeks, Hamas has indicated most recently that it would release all civilian hostages in exchange for a five-day pause, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive matter. Israeli military...

IDF forces have found a secret Hamas battle plan in the town of Jabalia, showing all Hamas defensive positions and tunnels in the entire area of Jabalia and Northern Gaza. Israeli forces have been using this secret plan to prepare the next phase of offensives further into the city. Israeli forces have held a hard defense in central Gaza. Israeli forces have been engaging in light fighting in the West Bank, and also in Northern Israel.

Hamas has built “a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza, as wide as a city,” CNN reported on October 14. The tunnels were used to facilitate the Hamas pogrom, and the 150 Israelis whom Hamas kidnapped probably are being held there. So how did Hamas acquire the cement, despite Israel’s blockade of such materials? Apparently Hamas had some help from former U.S. Mideast envoy Dennis Ross—according to Ross himself. Ross has been appearing as an expert commentator on major media outlets in recent days, including on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” on October 8, CNN’s “Amanpour and Company” on October 13, and...

Marzouk also said that protecting Gazan civilians is the responsibility of the United Nations and Israel. Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said that the tunnels built by Hamas are meant to protect and hold terrorists, and not civilians, in an interview that was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. "We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed," he claimed. "These tunnels are meant to protect us from airplanes. We are fighting inside the tunnels." Marzouk's statements were in response to questions about why Hamas constructed over 500...

<p>The next phase of Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has begun, with Israel starting to move troops and armored vehicles over the border into the Palestinian territory.</p><p>But much of the war between Israel and Hamas, which governs Gaza, may be fought not on the territory's streets, but instead underneath them — where Hamas is believed to have built an elaborate network of tunnels, and where the militant group is also hiding hostages.</p>

Israel may use a new weapon called “sponge bombs” to seal and block off Hamas tunnels. The Israel Defense Force could deploy the new handheld devices to negotiate Hamas’ labyrinthine tunnel system –and trap any hidden fighters in them once they launch their long-awaited ground invasion into Gaza, according to reports. The sponge bombs consist of chemical compounds based around a liquid emulsion. It can be thrown into a tunnel where it swiftly expands and hardens.

Hamas is feared to be using fuel intended to help the humanitarian effort in Gaza to power its underground tunnel network. The Israel Defence Forces have published aerial imagery supposedly showing Hamas storage tanks containing 'more than 500,000 litres of fuel'. Military experts are concerned that the terror group has begun exploiting the crisis response to Israeli airstrikes by seizing critical fuel supplies. The labyrinthine system of tunnels snaking below the Gaza Strip, thought to stretch for hundreds of miles, is thought to be Hamas's key defence against an Israeli ground invasion. The tactic relies on constant fuel supplies. Yesterday...

The Palestinian Islamist terrorist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders What lies in wait for Israeli ground troops in Gaza, security sources say, is a Hamas tunnel network hundreds of kilometers long and up to 80 meters deep, described by one freed hostage as "a spider's web" and by one expert as the "Viet Cong times 10." The Palestinian Islamist terrorist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders - including attack, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources...

In the midst of massacres and kidnappings, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother abducted and freed by Hamas terrorists has revealed what it was like being held in the terrifying maze of tunnels under Gaza. Kibbutz resident Yocheved Lifshitz, one of an estimated 220 hostages taken violently by Hamas on October 7, endured a nightmarish two weeks as a prisoner in what she called a “spider’s web” of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip before being released late Monday with another woman, 79-year-old Nurit Cooper. “I’ve been through hell,” Lifshitz said, nearly whispering while talking to reporters at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv....

Official says without power, the ventilation systems in Hamas' tunnels won't work and leaders will be forced to leave tunnels or suffocate. Hamas fears that in the coming days, the Gaza Strip will run out of fuel and there will be no electricity, which will cause the ventilation systems in the tunnels dug under the enclave to shut down, a security official told Walla today (Tuesday). When the electricity runs out, the Hamas terrorists will be forced out of the tunnels into the open air, he claimed. "According to a calculation made by the security establishment, and an analysis of...

Hamas fears that in the coming days, the gas will run out in the Gaza Strip and there will be no electricity, which will cause the ventilation systems in the tunnels dug under the enclave to shut down, a security official told Walla today (Tuesday). When the electricity runs out, the Hamas terrorists will be forced out of the tunnels into the open air. "According to a calculation made by the security establishment, and an analysis of the humanitarian situation in terms of supplies in general and the amount of fuel in particular in the Gaza Strip, in a short...

Israeli officials say that they executed an aerial strike on a mosque inside Gaza that was being used as a command center for terrorists who were preparing to carry out “a significant and imminent terror attack.” The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it launched the attack on the command center located under the Al-Ansar Mosque early Sunday local time in conjunction with Shin Bet, an Israeli intelligence agency. “In a joint IDF and ISA activity, the IAF conducted an aerial strike on an underground terror compound in the Al-Ansar mosque in Jenin,” the IDF said in a statement. “The mosque...

Two top Spanish transport officials have resigned over a botched order for new commuter trains that cost nearly €260m ($275m; £230m). The trains could not fit into non-standard tunnels in the northern regions of Asturias and Cantabria. The head of Spain's rail operator Renfe, Isaías Táboas, and the Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera, have now left their roles. Renfe ordered the trains in 2020 but the following year manufacturer CAF realised that the dimensions it had been given for the trains were inaccurate and stopped construction. The rail network in northern Spain was built in the...

Fwiw Under the Azovstal industrial zone, owned by oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, allegedly the illegitimate son of former Ukrainian President Kuchma, there are 24 km of tunnels at a depth of up to 30 meters. There is also a secret NATO facility PIT-404- and a secret NATO bio-laboratory with biological weapons. At the PIT-404 facility, NATO officers are blocked. The tunnels are equipped with a bunker system with armor protection. Inside are about 240 foreigners, including officers from NATO and the French Foreign Legion, as well as personnel from the biolab. Their guards, financed by Akhmetov, number up to 3,000 people....

A miniature device that scans deep below ground is being developed to identify ice deposits and hollow lava tubes on the moon for possible human settlement. The prototype device, known as MAPrad, is just one-tenth the size of existing ground penetrating radar systems, yet can see almost twice as deeply below ground—more than 100 meters down—to identify minerals, ice deposits, or voids such as lava tubes. Local start-up CD3D PTY Limited has now received a grant from the Australian Space Agency's moon to Mars initiative to further develop the prototype with RMIT University, including testing it by mapping one of...

Illustrative video released by IDF demonstrates what the Hamas underground tunnel network looks like and how it was destroyed. The IDF released an animated video on Saturday evening providing an inside look at the Hamas "Metro" underground tunnel network which the Israeli Air Force destroyed late Thursday night in a massive assault on the Gaza Strip. On Thursday evening the IDF took Hamas by surprise, luring them into their tunnel network, known to the IDF as the "Metro", before destroying it, killing an estimated 300-400 Hamas operatives. The “Metro” had been built in the years after the 2014 war in...