The Jerusalem Post on Thursday joined a Hebrew media visit to the largest Hamas tunnel for cross-border smuggling on the Philadelphi Corridor as well as to the tunnel shaft in Tel Sultan, Rafah where six Israeli hostages who Hamas had held were found dead on August 31.
The cross-border tunnel was large enough to fit large vehicles in it for smuggling and was the tunnel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was referring to in his presentation about such enormous tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor.
According to the IDF, this tunnel was one of nine cross-border tunnels which it has uncovered and destroyed since taking over Rafah from Hamas in May-June.
Hamas’s large tunnel network
Those nine tunnels are themselves part of a network of more than 200 tunnels in that area of Rafah, around 160 or 80% of which the IDF says it has already destroyed.
During the Post’s visit to the Philadelphi Corridor, dozens of large drills could be seen continuing the work of uncovering any other potential tunnels in the area.
Jerusalem Post military correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob visits Rafah in the Gaza Strip. (Credit: Yonah Jeremy Bob)
This was different from The Post’s visit to Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor on June 26, when the IDF had taken control of almost all of Gaza above ground but was only at the initial stages of exploring and destroying Hamas’s vast tunnel network.
At that point, IDF commanders were pointing out tunnel shafts that they were exploring, but they had not yet been completely dug up, let alone destroyed.
For example, The Post was driven by the exact same spot where this humongous tunnel was being hidden but had no idea what was underground right in front of this author’s eyes.
The cross-border tunnel viewed by The Post was next to an area that had previously had a mosque and a hangar bay, both destroyed at some point during the IDF invasion.
The tunnel was a few dozen meters from the border fence. Still, the IDF said that Hamas had purposely caused a collapse in the tunnel, observed by The Post and that once the military dug around the collapsed portion, it found that the tunnel continued until around 10 meters from the border.
According to the IDF, at that point, the tunnel had already collapsed a second time from the Egyptian side.
The military gave the Egyptians credit for filling in or destroying all nine cross-border tunnels that it found.
Hamas’s long game of terrorism
Another feature of the Philadelphi cross-border tunnel was metal hinges left over from a blast door, which the IDF had broken through.
IDF sources said that the tunnel was probably dug mostly during the 2012-2014 era.
IDF sources said that the top of this tunnel was covered in cement, a sign of a more expensive and significant tunnel, and that other tunnels in Rafah might only be overlaid with iron and wood or might be tiny, requiring crawling through.
Next, the IDF brought The Post to the tunnel shaft in Tel Sultan where six Israeli bodies were found.
Although recently, the IDF said that the six were killed on August 29, IDF sources said that they might have even been killed as early as late night on August 28.
The shaft, which it had already been reported was in a children’s area, still showed pictures of Mickey Mouse, Snow White, and the word “LOVE” in English prominently displayed on one of the partially broken walls next to it.
Multiple buildings around the area were still standing, though many had been damaged by the IDF’s need to remove items that would have obstructed exhuming the bodies.
The area was extremely well-hidden, off from the main road.
A darker atmosphere descended on those present covering the tunnel shaft in light of how hard the tragedy of the six hostages;’ recent killing has impacted the country, even as reporters and soldiers continued carrying out their roles.
IDF sources said that although the military had believed there might be hostages in the area in general, that at the time in late August when they were maneuvering in the area, the chances of hostages being there had dropped significantly.
The reason was that IDF intelligence had indications that most of the hostages and senior Hamas officials had already fled the area when large portions of civilians fled the area.
In that light, though the IDF was being somewhat more careful with its operations so as not to endanger hostages, the going assumption was that hostages which had been in Rafah and Tel Sultan had already been moved.
The true reason that the tunnel shaft was found where the six hostages’ bodies were was that the IDF suspected that Hamas terrorists had a tunnel hideout there nearby – but not related to hostages per se.
A “buggy” vehicle for searching for tunnels was moving through the area and sank somewhat in its movements in the area above where the tunnel shaft was, signaling that something unusual was below.
The IDF then dug through the cement used by the terrorists to cover up the area and found the shaft.
With significant difficulty, a drone was sent into the tunnel shaft to explore, but it did not reveal very much.
Eventually, the IDF saw food items and bags for containing bodily excretions from going to the bathroom, leading it to believe the shaft might be more important than originally thought.
Next, the IDF found three dead bodies inside.
A further search found another three bodies inside, including women, who would be unusual to find in tunnels.
The IDF has said probably two terrorists did the killing, which could correspond with the two somewhat separate sets of three dead bodies.
Separately, IDF sources said that the killing of the Tel Sultan battalion commander and deputy commander Mahmoud Hamdan and Naal Bashir was carried out in a special force operation by Shayetet 13 and other special forces.
These special forces and other surveillance methods caught on to a sizable group of terrorists acting suspiciously as they pretended to be civilians who were fleeing Tel Sultan through a humanitarian corridor.
Since the terrorists were not covering their faces and did not have a hand on any of those moving through (to keep someone from running away) they were able to deduce that they were not hostages.
The IDF then tracked, engaged and killed those senior Hamas commanders. Three other senior Hamas Tel Sultan commanders have also been killed.
In total, 2,308 Hamas terrorists have been killed in Rafah and 13.6 kilometers of tunnels have been destroyed.