Over half of Hamas tunnels wrecked

Israeli forces have found about 800 tunnel entrances since October 27 leading to Hamas bunkers and the militant group’s vast underground tunnel network under the Gaza Strip. “More than half of the entrances have been destroyed,” it said. The military began searching for entrances to the tunnels on October 27, when the Israeli ground operation in Gaza began. The tunnel network consists of tunnels hundreds of kilometres long and has been compared to the New York subway. There are both bunkers and bases from which Hamas operates in the group’s war against Israel. Israel calls the tunnels the “Gaza metro”. Hamas has or has had tunnels under the border with Egypt for arms smuggling. In 2006, Hamas used the tunnels at the border with Israel in an attack in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third abducted. The tunnels are believed to be up to 30 meters underground. “The entrances are often on the lower floors of houses, apartment buildings, schools, kindergartens, mosques and playgrounds,” the Israeli military said in a press statement. /ritzau/Reuters/