Status: 10.12.2023, 10:15 a.m.
By: Christoph Gschoßmann
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Israel is threatening to flood the many Hamas tunnels under the Gaza Strip. Russia sharply criticizes this project.
Tel Aviv – Israel has invaded the Gaza Strip and is fighting Hamas. The country wants revenge for the terrorist attack on October 7. A major problem for the Army of Jerusalem is the extensive network of tunnels. Most recently, Israel publicly toyed with the idea of flooding the tunnels. Russia has now reacted to these plans with criticism.
Russia: Flooding Gaza tunnel would be a war crime
Moscow said such a move would amount to war crimes. Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin had spoken to Israeli and Arab decision-makers shortly after the start of the war and tried to position himself as a potential mediator between the parties to the conflict.
How realistic is the implementation of the flooding plan? Israel's Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, had called the plans to flood it with seawater a "good idea." He did not elaborate on specific plans. The Israeli army encounters a lot of underground infrastructure in the cordoned-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. "Any measure that increases our advantage over the enemy emerging from the underground and denies him this advantage is a measure that we seriously consider applying." This includes, for example, the destruction of the tunnels by explosions in order to prevent Hamas terrorists from using them. Israeli army spokesman Richard Hecht had said: "We are using all the means at our disposal to take action against the tunnel system."
War in Israel: 800 tunnels in Gaza – 500 of them already destroyed
First, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had assembled a system of large pumps that would allow it to flood the tunnel network. However, it is unclear whether the army really wants to use the tactic. There is concern, for example, that there are kidnapped Hamas hostages there. Experts also warned that flooding with seawater could have dramatic consequences for the environment.
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Israeli forces completed the installation of large pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in mid-November, the report said. Each of the at least five pumps could take water from the Mediterranean Sea and channel thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, so that they would be flooded within a few weeks, the newspaper reported. The Israeli army says it has found more than 800 tunnel shafts since the beginning of the Gaza war. Around 500 of them have already been destroyed, the army said.
An Israeli soldier stands in an underground tunnel. © Victor R. Caivano/dpa/AP
The tunnels were used for smuggling. Also, in order to resist Israeli bombs from the air, some of the tunnels reach dozens of meters underground. They are partially concreted or even supplied with electricity. On average, they are two meters high and one meter wide, but some are also large enough for vehicles. In addition, according to military experts, there are also command, control and communication rooms, pantries in the tunnels. There are also launchers for terrorists' rockets. (CGSC with dpa)