IDF leaders warn Hamas tunnels in Gaza are still a ‘major weapon’ and need to be destroyed

GAZA STRIP — Senior Israel Defense Force commanders have warned dismantling Hamas’ terror tunnels under Gaza needs to be a top priority if the ceasefire is to hold.

Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Hamas-Israel war does not include details on how Hamas infrastructure such as its underground tunnels and weapons production facilities will be destroyed.

Israel Defense Forces Res. Brigadier General Danny Van Buren told the Post the eradication of the Hamas tunnels “is a major part of demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.

“In order to keep the ceasefire and put a foundation for peace in place, one necessary part is to eliminate Hamas infrastructure.

“The tunnel system is the major weapon Hamas still has… When I looked at the 20-point Trump plan, the weak part is the way we are going to demilitarize the Gaza Strip.

“I am not sure if there is a good mechanism to destroy the tunnels. They will not give up weapons voluntarily.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said after the safe return of all 20 remaining living hostages Monday, the next phase is “the destruction of all of Hamas’ terror tunnels in Gaza.”

The “Gaza metro,” as it is known within Israel’s security establishment, contains more than 310 miles of tunnels, half the length of the New York Subway system.

Recently built tunnels were being discovered right up until the ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10. The tunnels – often built below hospitals and civilian infrastructure – have been used by Hamas terrorists to hide, stockpile weapons, make bombs and get around Gaza unnoticed. The first tunnel networks were first discovered by the IDF in 2013.

The IDF granted The Post rare access to see a freshly discovered Hamas terrorist tunnel under a hospital compound firsthand in the nearly encircled Gaza City on October 3.

Amid the sounds of artillery fire and sporadic rifle shots in a near-gutted apartment building seized from Hamas terrorists in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, a senior IDF identified the newly discovered 1.5-kilometer-long and 18 to 25-meter-deep Hamas tunnel, which ran across the compound of the closed Jordanian Field Hospital.

“Hamas company commanders and fighters were with the Jordanians” in the Field Hospital, the official claimed. 

IDF film footage shows a network of rooms connected to the tunnel, including workshops to produce rockets and sleeping and bathing quarters. 

An estimated 50 to 80 Hamas terrorists and Jordanian medical personnel abandoned the hospital and tunnel in late September.

Jordan’s government told the Associated Press its hospital was not being used by Hamas —which would be a war crime, according to international law.

The national security alarm bells are still ringing in Israel. Col. (res.) Yigal Carmon, a former counter-terrorism advisor to two prime ministers, told The Post: “Stage two [of the peace plan] is totally unclear and undetermined.

“Hamas remains in full force and will not negotiate its own dismantling and disappearance.”

According to the second phase of the 20-point plan, “All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt.”

Writing on the webpage of Israel’s Channel 12 television, Maj. Gen. (res.) Itzhak Brik noted: “The IDF recently admitted that only 25 percent of the tunnels or less were damaged by the IDF …  the IDF does not have enough professional forces to blow up hundreds of kilometers of tunnels.”

Hamas officials on Friday and Saturday told the international media that it rejected Trump’s demand to decommission its weapons, but privately leadership has expressed a different view, according to Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

“[Hamas officials] have said in private to interlocutors that the group may be open to a decommissioning process of Hamas’s offensive weapons,” Lovatt told Al Jazeera.