How Do You Fight Inside Tunnels? Hamas Documents Reveal Underground Warfare Tactics

The American newspaper, The New York Times, has unveiled new details regarding Hamas’ tactics in constructing tunnels, which may explain the challenges the Israeli army faces in dismantling its military capabilities so far.

According to the newspaper, these details emerged from a 2019 Hamas manual discovered by Israeli forces during the ongoing Gaza war, which The New York Times reviewed.

The manual meticulously describes the preparation for an underground military operation that can endure during prolonged conflicts, effectively slowing down Israeli ground forces inside the dark tunnels.

These documents, prepared long before Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, along with interviews conducted by the newspaper with experts and Israeli leaders, help explain why Israel is still struggling nearly a year after the war began to achieve its goal of dismantling Hamas.

The manual on underground combat includes instructions on how to conceal tunnel entrances, locate them using compasses or GPS, and how to enter and move efficiently.

It provides detailed guidance on how militants can navigate in darkness, move stealthily, and fire automatic weapons in confined spaces for maximum lethality.

One document states, “While moving in the dark within the tunnel, the fighter needs night vision goggles equipped with infrared,” adding that while maneuvering through narrow passages in the dark, the militant should place one hand on the wall and the other on the fighter ahead.

Field commanders are also instructed to time how long it takes their fighters to move between different underground points, down to the second, as reported by the newspaper.

The documents also refer to explosion-resistant doors within the tunnels to protect against bombs and Israeli soldiers. According to The New York Times, just a year before Israel’s attack, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, approved a $225,000 expenditure to install explosion-resistant doors to protect the tunnel network from airstrikes and ground attacks.

The newspaper noted that Israeli officials have spent years searching for and dismantling tunnels, but according to a senior Israeli official who spoke to them, assessing the tunnel network was not a priority because a full-scale invasion and war were considered unlikely.

Before the war, Israeli officials knew that Hamas had an extensive tunnel network, but it turned out to be more advanced and widespread than they had anticipated. Now, officials realize that Hamas had been preparing for this kind of confrontation, according to the report.

Experts say that without the tunnels, Hamas would not have been able to withstand the far superior Israeli army.

At the start of the war, officials estimated that the tunnel network extended about 400 kilometers. Now, they believe it is more than twice that length as the military continues to discover new tunnels.

The New York Times explained that Hamas used the tunnels to launch quick above-ground attacks, hide from Israeli forces, and detonate bombs remotely, according to Israeli military officials and a review of images and videos from battlefields.

These maneuvers have slowed Israel’s advance, but its army is still inflicting heavy losses on Hamas, driving its militants from strongholds, and forcing them to abandon large swaths of the tunnel network that they invested heavily in building.

A military spokesperson said, “Hamas is hiding in the tunnels and managing much of the fighting from there, prolonging the war.”

Former Israeli military intelligence chief Tamir Hayman stated, “Hamas’ combat strategy relies on underground tactics. This is one of the main reasons they’ve been able to endure against the Israeli Defense Forces so far.”

The newspaper highlighted the difficulty in destroying the tunnels; it may take up to 10 hours to destroy just a section of a tunnel, according to a senior Israeli officer experienced in tunnel warfare.

Last year, the Israeli army discovered a tunnel that was as deep as a 25-story building. The army said it took months to destroy.

Daphne Richmond-Barak, a tunnel warfare expert at Reichman University in Israel, said, “I can’t overstate this in any way. The tunnels affect the pace of operations. You can’t advance. You can’t secure the terrain.”

She added, “You are dealing with two wars. One on the surface and another underground.”

An Israeli special operations officer, speaking anonymously, said that when soldiers approach the tunnels, Hamas militants sometimes blow up the ceilings, causing collapses that block the path.

An Israeli military official stated that destroying the entire tunnel network could take years. Destroying it might also come with a human cost, as many tunnels wind beneath populated areas.

Ralph Goff, a former senior official at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who served in the Middle East, said, “Hamas’ tunnels are a critical, if not existential, element in its original combat plan.”