Gaza Metro surprises Israel again Israeli army discovers tunnel equipped with electric elevator

Gaza Metro surprises Israel again.

Israeli army discovers tunnel equipped with electric elevator

For almost four months, Israel has been fighting a war on the Gaza Strip

in rooftop battles and in tunnels called the "Gaza Metro"

which never cease to reveal their surprises.

The Israeli army announced today that the 5th Brigade Reserve fighters

in cooperation with the Air Force and the Yahlum Engineering Unit

destroyed a tunnel hatch equipped with an electric underground elevator

leading to what appears to be a command and control post for Hamas.

It is a two :

dimensional guerrilla war: the first above the ground and the second below. 

But to fight on the surface, you have to control what's going on underground. 

According to

 information released by the Israeli army

which is the only one able to enter these tunnels, Hamas has established

 a vast fortress of more than 1,400 tunnels, more than 500 kilometres long.

Major Edo confirmed the existence of "tactical tunnels near the border used

by Hamas fighters to suddenly attack some kibbutzmat and cause losses to

our soldiers on the roof", noting that all "tunnels have a link to the Gaza metro

 which allows for the passage of cars, ammunition and hostages".

Initially :

the tunnels were built for the purpose of smuggling goods from Egypt

into Gaza during the first intifada in the occupied Palestinian territory

 between 1987 and 1993, while they

 have been significantly updated over the past 15 years.

Daphne Richmond Barak, a professor at Richman University and the author of

the 2018 book Underground War, describes Hamas tunnels as "one of the largest

most complex and most sophisticated tunnels ever built in the history of war."

She says: 

"This infrastructure (you mean tunnels)

 has everything Hamas needs to do with its war. Whether it is weapons

command centres or food items. They are oxygen to her. "

Some tunnels have been reinforced by iron cement and are equipped

 with electricity, advanced communication systems and a ventilation

 and sewage system. All these systems were built underground. 

Some of the tunnels, according to Major Edo, are "40 metres 

much more deep in some locations and the search is still ongoing."

On December 18 :

the Israeli army announced the discovery of the known

 "largest tunnel", a vast network of mazes divided into several branches

spanning 4 kilometers and located only 400 metres from

the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip.

"When Hamas's vast underground tunnel network is uncovered as one of 

the largest ever encountered by a modern army," wrote John Spencer

a studies officer at the Modern Wars Institute of 

the Israeli Military Academy who specializes in warfare in downtown.

This most vicious :

and complex form of war depends primarily on one element

namely surprise. Commandos can hide, carry out ambushes

 or trap part or all of the tunnel.

With battles on the surface and in the interior of the Earth and numerous

 explosive devices planted inside the tunnels, Hamas' tunnels are arguably

 the greatest challenge to the Israeli army, making them more difficult

 and complicated by the presence of the 136 remaining hostages.

 The destruction or dumping of the Gaza Metro is therefore not

 the ideal solution as a risk that will increase the number of victims.