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With Mapping Robots and Blast Gel, Israel Wages War on Hamas Terror Tunnels
Israeli soldiers inspect the entrance to what they say is a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists during a ground operation in a location given as Gaza, in this handout image released Nov. 9, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
After locating what they described as the entrance to a Hamas tunnel under an evacuated hospital in northern Gaza, Israeli army engineers filled the passage with exploding gel and hit the detonator.
The blast engulfed the building and sent smoke spewing out of at least three points along a nearby road in a district of the city of Beit Hanoun, surveillance footage showed.
“The gel spread out and exploded whatever they had been waiting for us in the tunnel,” an army officer told reporters at a briefing at Zeelim Ground Forces Base in southern Israel.
Clearing the tunnels is an important part of Israel‘s military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response to the Palestinian terrorist group’s deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
When not using munitions to map out the bunkers, access shafts, and tunnels which both sides say run for hundreds of kilometers under Gaza, the army opts for tracker robots and other technology operated remotely.
The officer could not be identified under the rules of the briefing, and declined to provide further details of below-ground combat which he said was a work in progress. He did not name the hospital in Beit Hanoun.
“I think there are other methods being developed,” he said. “That is where creativity and innovation come in handy.”
In Beit Hanoun, where his forces were operating, some gunmen had stormed the Israeli military from tunnel shafts and had been killed, he said.
Israel‘s policy, he said, was not to send personnel in the other direction to confront Palestinian fighters who would have a defender’s advantage in narrow, dark, under-ventilated and collapsible passages with which they were familiar.
“We don’t want to go down there. We know that they left us a lot of side-bombs [improvised explosives devices],” he said.
One such bomb, rigged to the cover of a tunnel-access shaft at ground level, had killed four special forces reservists last week.
WEB OF TUNNELS
Hamas has tunnels for attack, smuggling, and storage, security sources say. Dozens of shafts can lead to each tunnel at depths of between 20 and 80 meters (65-260 feet).
Destroying a shaft is relatively easy and quick, the officer said, adding: “Any platoon can do it.”
The Israeli military said last week that 130 shafts had been destroyed so far, but gave no figure for demolished tunnels.
The tunnels are harder to tackle. The officer said several tons of the exploding gel — on which he declined to give any technical details, other than to say it is brought in by truck — are required for every few hundred meters of tunnel.
After-action analysis is difficult. The officer said around half of the shafts in his Beit Hanoun operation zone had been destroyed, but acknowledged that these can be rebuilt.
“It’s hard to say how many tunnels [are destroyed] because they are all connected,” he said.
Hamas has denied using hospitals as cover for such tunnels. It has dismissed assertions by Israel, backed by the US, that it has a command center under Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, which Israeli forces entered on Wednesday.
EFFORTS TO AVOID ENDANGERING HOSTAGES
Hamas took some 240 people back to Gaza as captives in the Oct. 7 attack in which about 1,200 people were killed, Israel has said. One of a handful of hostages released said she and at least two dozen others had been held in a tunnel.
The army officer said care was being taken not to endanger tunnels that may contain hostages.
“We sometimes get indications that this [a target] might be related to hostages. And then we know not to attack it unless we get an approval [that it is clear],” he said
Like much of northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun has been emptied of civilians, who fled south under orders from Israel as it sent in ground troops to try to wipe out Hamas.
“The only population left is the terrorists,” the officer said, adding that sometimes a secondary explosion set off by a tunnel destruction blast “will bring down a building a few hundred meters away”.
Palestinian terrorists taken captive have provided Israel with intelligence on the tunnel network, he said, but this information has been limited.
“Most of them don’t know about the whole city. But they know their own village, they know pretty well the tunnel system,” the officer said.
The officer said it could take months to destroy Gaza’s entire underground network.
“I think it’s more complicated than the New York City subway,” he said.
The post With Mapping Robots and Blast Gel, Israel Wages War on Hamas Terror Tunnels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.