Israel forces face hand-to-hand combat with Hamas militants in 40ft deep Gaza tunnels
London: Israel is on the cusp of an armed military incursion into the Gaza Strip to battle Hamas militants who recently launched a series of surprise attacks against it, killing hundreds of civilians, a media report said.But although Israel’s Defence Forces are well-trained, well-equipped and outnumber their Hamas foes considerably, the hellish battlefield that awaits them in Gaza could cause huge casualties, Daily Mail reported.The Palestinian Islamist fighters operate in a complex network of reinforced tunnels, some of which are buried up to 40ft underground and all of which could conceal an ambush, be booby-trapped – or worse – filled with explosives and primed to cave in, the report said.This means Israel can bomb Gaza all it likes and launch bunker-busting munitions to clear out some tunnels – but the IDF would still need to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops to sweep through the ‘Gaza Metro’ and neutralise every last Hamas fighter if it is to wipe the organisation out completely.Hamas in 2011 said they had constructed more than 300 miles of tunnel systems and although analysts suspected that figure was inflated, the group is sure to have dramatically expanded the network since then.
