Israel has uncovered what it says is the largest Hamas-built tunnel discovered yet in Gaza, one that ends about a quarter-mile from a civilian border crossing. It's big enough to allow large vehicles to pass through it, the Wall Street Journal reports. "This is for moving massive assets," an Israeli military spokesman said on Sunday, after reporters were given a brief tour on Friday. "It's strategic." The tunnel is another piece of Hamas' planning that Israel wasn't aware of before the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Among the questions raised by the discovery is how many other large tunnels have been built near Israel that it doesn't know about, analysts said.
The tunnel's existence proves Hamas diverted building materials meant to help Gaza civilians to military projects, another Israeli spokesman said, per the New York Times. "Millions of dollars have been spent on this tunnel, hundreds of tons of cement, a lot of electricity," he said, instead of on "hospitals, schools, housing and other needs of the Gazans." Hamas did not immediately issue a comment about the tunnel. "Hamas has the most extensive and most sophisticated tunnel network ever encountered in warfare," said Daphné Richemond-Barak, a professor at Reichman University in Israel who wrote a book about underground combat. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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