As you read the reports of damage Israel has visited upon the infrastructure of Gaza, I thought you might be interested in this explanation of why it happens, as provided in Seth Mandel’s article for Commentary Magazine:
Former British paratrooper Andrew Fox recently embedded with an IDF division in Rafah. The soldiers of that division alone, he recounts, “have found ten tunnel-hidden rocket launching sites, 21 subterranean weapons production sites, and they have destroyed 200 tunnel entry shafts.” Unsurprising, but still notable, “each one of those tunnel shafts led to a mosque; a school; a person’s home. To destroy the tunnel system, there is inevitable damage to the buildings under which the tunnels run and to which they are connected.”
The entrances to those tunnels are booby-trapped; the IDF has to enter with drones first, then dogs, then small groups of soldiers. Because Hamas can still remotely detonate IEDs and has cameras in the homes, the IDF often must destroy the structure once it discovers that live IEDs have been left behind. Hence the high level of damage above Rafah despite the low level of fatalities. (The population has been moved so Rafah can be cleared.)
Fox sums up: “Hamas has turned the whole place into one giant booby trap.”
This gives a good picture of Hamas’s uniquely evil existence. The terror group has destroyed Gaza, it’s as simple as that. It also means structural surface damage can’t be avoided in most cases. Those tunnels are not municipal water pipes, they cannot be left unsearched and intact.
Qadi’s ordeal is a reminder of that fact. The hostages are moved around underground and often held there as well. Yahya Sinwar can, of course, simply release the hostages and surrender. He has instead insisted on the war’s continuation, and this is what that looks like.
But the tunnels aren’t only for hostages. The tunnels, in fact, are at the center of the ceasefire negotiations. Israeli troops have secured the Gaza side of the Philadelphi corridor and the tunnels leading from Rafah to Egypt. It is not hyperbole to say that those specific tunnels are the reason for the perpetual state of hostilities and the regularity of war between Israel and Hamas. Without them, Hamas would be unable to rearm and resupply in perpetuity, to say nothing of the opportunity the corridor presents to move terrorists into and out of the war zone.
This is why Israel does what it does.
Any questions?
