Editorial Team, CNBC Indonesia
Sunday, 17/12/2023 08:15 WIB
Photo: Israeli soldiers inspect a tunnel suspected of being a hideout for the Hamas militant group at Al Shifa Hospital, Gaza Strip. (REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/File Photo)
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Israel reportedly began flooding several tunnels with sea water. It is claimed that the tunnel stretches along the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is hiding. The Israeli army’s efforts to flood the tunnel were carried out because they wanted to destroy Hamas’ underground network.
Quoting CNN, one United States (US) official stated that
Israel carefully tested the method on a limited basis. If successful, the flooding could escalate to damage the tunnel network on a larger scale.
However, this method is difficult and controversial. Even if applied with a sufficient amount of water and high enough pressure, it may only be partially successful. Moreover, the length of the Hamas tunnel is said to be hundreds of kilometers. It also risks contaminating fresh water supplies and damaging whatever infrastructure remains on the surface.
Flooding the tunnels could also kill hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, most of whom are believed to be underground. Israel isn’t even sure whether this method will work or not, the American official said. However, they tried to be careful to only test in tunnels where they believed there were no hostages.
Until this news was published, the Israeli army had not yet responded to what the impact would be, as a result of its action by flooding the tunnel with sea water.
A Hamas spokesman said that they were actually building the tunnel to prevent attempts to flood it. “The tunnel was built by trained and educated engineers who took into account all possible attacks from the invaders, including water pumping,” said Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan at a press conference in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, citing CNN, Sunday (17/12/2023).
Tunnels have historically been used as a means of warfare, including by Al Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan and by the Viet Cong in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
However, Hamas tunnels are unique. “They were very innovative in their depth, in their sophistication, in their digging, in their trapping,” said Danny Orbach, a military historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The underground structure is thought to be built beneath most of the Gaza Strip, a densely populated region home to more than 2 million people. Hamas tunnels are large enough to accommodate adult Hamas fighters, weapons, goods and even cars.
Some are reinforced with thick cement walls or separated by iron doors, and not all of them are connected. The scale of the tests carried out by the Israeli military was not clear, including how much water and how much pressure to flood them or which tunnels were targeted.
For the operation to be successful, the pressure used to pump water into the tunnels had to be high enough to destroy not only the cement walls, but also the thick iron doors that separated some of them. This is considered to be a big challenge.
The flooding process can also have a negative impact on the Gaza area. Flooding tunnels beneath populated areas risks damaging intact infrastructure and polluting its freshwater sources
According to Amnesty International, the only source of fresh water in the region, the Coastal Aquifer, is increasingly depleted due to over-extraction and is contaminated by sewage and seawater infiltration.
If the entire tunnel network is flooded, the buildings above could also collapse. According to Orbach, the damage could be severe because much of it is under civil infrastructure.
Watch the video below:
Video: Hamas Opens Option to Make Peace With Israel
(pgr/pgr)
2023-12-17 01:15:00
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