Israeli military chief: Flooding Hamas tunnels "good idea"
Fire or water could be used to destroy the Hamas tunnels in order to drive terrorists out of hiding. At the moment, Israel's army favors flooding the underground facilities. It has not yet begun, but the Chief of the General Staff is in favor of it.
Israel's Chief of General Staff has described the idea of flooding the extensive tunnel system of the Islamist Hamas under the Gaza Strip with seawater as a good idea. However, Herzi Halevi did not want to go into more detail, he told journalists in response to a corresponding question. He said that the army had come across a lot of underground infrastructure in the sealed-off coastal strip. "We knew there were a lot of them. One goal is to destroy them."
According to Halevi, there are various ways to achieve this. He did not want to go into individual considerations or measures. However, he said: "Any measure that increases our advantage over the enemy that emerges from the underground and denies it this advantage is a measure that we are seriously considering using." This includes, for example, destroying the tunnels by means of explosions to prevent Hamas terrorists from using them.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had assembled a system of large pumps with which it could flood the Hamas tunnel network under the Gaza Strip with seawater. The Israeli armed forces had completed the assembly of large seawater pumps north of the Al-Shati refugee camp in mid-November, it said. According to the Wall Street Journal, each of the at least five pumps could draw water from the Mediterranean and channel thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within a few weeks.
Citing US government officials, the newspaper writes that it is not certain whether the Israeli government intends to use this tactic. Israel has neither made a final decision on this nor ruled out such a plan, the officials were quoted as saying. There are concerns, for example, that kidnapped hostages are being held there. Experts also expressed concern that flooding with seawater could have dramatic consequences for the environment.
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The Israeli army is considering using floodwater to destroy Hamas' extensive tunnel system in the Gaza Strip, as per a report in the Wall Street Journal. This tactic, if implemented, could potentially drive Hamas terrorists out of their underground hideouts, contributing to the ongoing Israel war and broader conflicts in the region.
Source: www.ntv.de
