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Israel starts pumping seawater into Hamas tunnels

Flooding shafts is one of several ways the IDF is destroying the network.

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist inside a tunnel in Beit Hanun, in the Gaza Strip, May 18, 2022. Photo by Attia Muhammed/Flash90.
A Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist inside a tunnel in Beit Hanun, in the Gaza Strip, May 18, 2022. Photo by Attia Muhammed/Flash90.

Israel’s military has started to pump seawater into Hamas’s terror tunnels, part of an operation to destroy an underground network dubbed “the Gaza metro,” U.S. officials briefed on the matter say.

Flooding tunnels with seawater from the Mediterranean is one of several methods the IDF is employing to destroy the underground network, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

At the start of the month, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said of the possibility of pumping seawater: “Any means which give us an advantage over the enemy, deprives it of this asset, is a means that we are evaluating using. This is a good idea, but I won’t comment on its specifics.”

“We are working—going from one tunnel to another, placing weapons there, and using a range of means to destroy this infrastructure, including through new ways soon,” said Halevi.

“There is no place where Hamas will be free from IDF’s offensive capabilities,” he said at the time.

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