Israel’s army has begun flooding Hamas’s tunnel network as intense fighting rages throughout Gaza. A funding dispute at the UN’s Palestinian assistance agency prompted the organization to issue a warning about the potential “collapse of the humanitarian system” in the region.
The core of the battle in recent weeks has been the main city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, substantial parts of which have been reduced to a muddy wasteland of bombed-out buildings. A correspondent with AFP observed people fleeing the area on Tuesday while nearby explosions were audible.
“We left the Nasser hospital without any mattresses, under tank and air strikes. We didn’t know where to go,” said one young woman.
“We’re out in the cold, left to fend for ourselves, with no tents and nothing to survive on.”
Elsewhere in the city, Israeli troops gave journalists a tour of a tunnel they said had been used as a Hamas command centre.
“Every war has its own characteristics, and I think that this war, its basic character is about that over- and underground manoeuvre,” Dan Goldfus, commander of the 98th Paratroopers Division, told reporters outside of the shaft.
“I think the enemy is on the run and is trying to put itself under the civilians as much as it can,” he added.
In an attempt to “neutralize the threat of Hamas’ subterranean network,” the Israeli military, which has called the extensive network of tunnels “the Gaza metro,” announced on Tuesday that it had started inundating the underground facilities with water.
