Video: Israel Blows Up Hamas Tunnels In Gaza’s ‘Elite Quarter’ With Huge Explosion

(Daily Mail) Israeli special forces claim to have destroyed a large network of strategic underground tunnels operated by Hamas in Gaza.

‘The network of tunnels was destroyed in a controlled manner,’ the IDF said in a statement shared on Telegram with the footage.

The claims came as an in-depth investigation by The Washington Post published Thursday concluded there was ‘no immediate’ evidence rooms connecting the city’s al-Shifa hospital to tunnels were used for military purposes by Hamas.

The death toll in Gaza surpassed 20,000, health officials said today, as Israeli bombing over the besieged strip continues unabated – and amid growing calls from pro-Palestinian protestors and the families of Israeli hostages for a ceasefire.

Some 85 per cent of the 2.3mn population of Gaza has now been displaced by Israel’s bombing campaign, with civilians ordered in October to evacuate the north and head south before being told to evacuate the south. Charities warn there are fewer and fewer safe places for residents to turn.

Despite the calls for peace, Israel has indicated it plans to expand its ground offensive. The military said late Thursday it is sending more ground forces, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis to target Hamas above ground and in tunnels.

On Friday, the IDF ordered tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes in Burej, an urban refugee camp, and surrounding communities, also in the south.

 

Thermal imaging from above showed the explosions detonating yesterday

According to Israel’s military, Gaza City is built upon extensive networks of tunnels used by Hamas – evidence, it says, that Gaza’s de facto government is using human shields. Hamas denies the accusation.

Both the US and Israel have claimed al-Shifa, the city’s largest hospital, is being used as cover for Hamas bases underground. Following raids on the hospital last month – and the evacuation of patients – Israel has begun cautious movements through tunnels discovered around the centre.

Israel shared videos last month purporting to reveal small arms caches stashed in the hospital. Hundreds were then forced to evacuate on November 18 after over a week spent fully securing the building.

Progress is expected to be slow as the IDF moves through cautiously with robots and dogs, anticipating traps set up by Hamas.

However, an investigation by The Washington Post shared on Thursday, based on open-source visuals and satellite imagery, found little evidence to back up Israel’s ‘remarkably specific’ claims about al-Shifa.

The Post’s analysis claimed that ‘the rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas’, that ‘none of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network’ and that ‘there is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards’.

Israel has launched raids on the hospital, claiming that it is being used as a base for Hamas. Under international law, the hospital would lose its special protections if found to be used for significant purposes. Depending on the context, the retrieval of small arms may not be enough to ascertain whether the building was being used in this way.

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 20,000, according to health officials, the latest indication of the staggering cost of the war as Israel expanded its ground offensive and ordered tens of thousands more people to leave their homes.

The deaths, amounting to nearly 1% of the territory’s prewar population, are just one measure of the devastation wrought by the conflict that over 11 weeks has displaced nearly 85% of Gaza’s people and leveled wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave.

More than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the population – are starving, according to a report Thursday from the United Nations and other agencies describing the crisis caused by Israel’s bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas‘ October 7 attack.

Chiara Saccardi, Regional Head of Action Against Hunger in the Middle East, said in a statement shared with MailOnline: ‘The combination of incessant shelling, shortages of food, water, fuel, and the inability of humanitarian agencies to fully operate in Gaza has caused this desperate situation.

‘The UN and humanitarian organisations have been warning for weeks about the need to remove barriers to aid entering Gaza to avoid this reality.

‘Everything we are doing is insufficient to meet the needs of two million people. It is difficult to find flour and rice, and people have to wait hours to access latrines and wash themselves.

‘We are experiencing an emergency like I have never seen before,’ adds Noelia Monge, Head of Emergencies for Action Against Hunger, who recently returned from the region.

According to the charity, ‘virtually every household in Gaza skips meals every day. Four out of five households in the north, and half of those displaced in the south, go days without eating a single thing. This situation could be reversed immediately with increased humanitarian access.’

‘Nasma’ a humanitarian and development aid worker working with Mercy Corps in Gaza, told MailOnline: ‘The situation has become catastrophic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this before, or ever imagined that we would get to this point.

‘Since the ceasefire or the pause stopped, it has been crazy. It’s been much worse honestly than before… like before it was everything was happening mostly in the north of Gaza but I live in the south of Gaza and that’s where everything has been happening.

‘After this pause ended, after it ended… there were at least, on that day, I think it was Friday at least, three different bombings and two of them were in the refugee camp.

‘And because we live near a hospital, we hear all the ambulances, all the screams and everything. It was horrible.

‘It really was seeing people running to the hospital to check on their families and everything and then seeing trucks loaded with people who were injured. It’s catastrophic, honestly.’

‘Nowadays… people won’t be lucky enough to get a load of bread at the end of the day. And then there are long queues everywhere, like queues for water, only a couple of functioning water plants,’ she added.

‘Our lives have really just been queues for the past days since this started. And the queues are getting longer and longer. There are queues for gas, cooking gas, and then are are queues for fuel. Because cars are even now running on corn oil, which is horrible because everything is polluted. You can’t breathe the air outside.’

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