Doubts about hostages? – Israel prepares to flood Hamas tunnels

In mid-November, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) completed the installation of at least five pumps about a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials. With thousands of cubic meters of water per hour, the underground network can be flooded within a few weeks.

Operation before the release of the hostages?
The report left it unclear whether Israel would consider using the pumps before all hostages are released. No final decision has been made on whether the flood control should actually be carried out, the report said. An IDF official declined to comment on the plan, saying only that it was working to “destroy Hamas’ terrorist capabilities in various ways and through various military and technological means.”

In any case, such a tactic carries risks: Israel would be able to destroy the tunnels that have been used for terrorist purposes for years and drive Hamas out of its underground hideouts. However, seawater flooding would endanger the Gaza Strip’s water supply. The Israeli army says it has found more than 800 tunnel shafts since the start of the war, including under the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. About 500 of them, and therefore many kilometers of underground routes, have already been destroyed, it was said on Sunday.

Israel has information about the whereabouts of the hostages
According to Hamas, there are still hostages in the tunnels kidnapped in the October 7 terrorist attack. This could also be a reason why Israel is still reluctant to flood Hamas shelters. The army has intelligence on the whereabouts of the hostages still in the Gaza Strip, IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus confirmed, without providing further details. Israel believes 137 hostages are still being held there. According to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, they include fifteen women and two children.

Last week, 105 hostages were released during a ceasefire in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. Hamas says it does not want to continue negotiations over the release of more hostages until the end of the war. Israeli army spokesman Conricus said on Tuesday evening that they wanted to get all the hostages back. If this is not possible through negotiations, other means will be used.

Continue with Khan Younis
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to advance in the south of the Gaza Strip and has fired on targets in the Khan Younis area, according to media reports. The Times of Israel on Tuesday evening cited Palestinian reports that heavy attacks had taken place in the largest city in the southern part of the closed-off coastal area. Israeli tanks had advanced there earlier. Eyewitnesses also reported seeing armored personnel carriers and bulldozers.

Following the expansion of the Israeli military operation against the Islamist Hamas, criticism of the army’s actions is growing in view of the suffering of the civilian population. Aid organizations speak of “horror” and “unbearable suffering” in the south. No one would feel safe if bombs were falling every ten minutes, James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s fund Unicef, told the BBC.

NGOs are sounding the alarm
According to aid organization Doctors Without Borders, two hospitals in the south can no longer handle the influx of patients. The organization announced on Monday that Al-Aqsa Hospital and Nasser Hospital were particularly affected. Israel accuses Hamas of launching attacks from residential areas and hospitals and using civilians as human shields.

Meanwhile, army spokesman Conricus again denied a total failure of telecommunications services in the coastal strip. He told American broadcaster CNN that he himself had seen live broadcasts of Palestinian propaganda people on TikTok. The networks may not be perfect, but there are no power outages in Gaza as previously reported by the Palestinian company Paltel, the army spokesman said.

Army provides information about combat zones
The Israeli military has activated an evacuation map that divides the Gaza Strip into hundreds of small zones to inform civilians about combat zones. However, critics complain that many people do not have electricity or internet access to view the map. Many people don’t know how to deal with it either. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled there from the north of the area on behalf of Israel are crowding south of Gaza.

Israeli strikes have now killed nearly 15,900 people in the coastal area, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. The number of victims cannot currently be independently verified, but the United Nations and other observers note that the authority’s figures have generally proven credible in the past.