Earth, Sun, and Water: The Elements that Fuel Hamas’s Tunnels
How did Hamas manage the longest underground warfare campaign in history? A lawsuit recently filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia tells the untold story of how Hamas’s tunnels were sustained by and intertwined with civilian infrastructure — enabling the survivability and continuity of the chain of command even under significant military pressure.
Given Israel’s ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’s tunnel complex and sophisticated infrastructure continues to be in the limelight.
Any discussion of Gaza’s future is woefully incomplete without addressing Hamas’s longtime underground, cross-border network of tunnels. This tunnel system has enabled Hamas to sustain its longest-ever war with Israel.
While the Israel Defense Forces was able to destroy cross-border tunnels dug between Gaza and Israel during the 2014 Gaza war, tunnel systems inside Gaza continued to expand and improve. These underground systems crisscross Gaza, reach hundreds of miles long and several floors down, and host all types of military equipment – from rocket launching pads to command-and-control centers, weapon manufacturing infrastructure, ammunition caches, and living quarters.
The complaint alleges that the construction of this enormous underground military system was made possible via energy projects financed by international and U.S.-taxpayer funded institutions, including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
This jarring reality is brought to light by nearly two hundred families of American victims of the October 7th attacks, who accuse Palestinian-American billionaire Bashar Masri of knowingly providing substantial assistance to Hamas’s terror infrastructure in Gaza that carried out the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.
The lawsuit is spearheaded by the global law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Osen LLC – a firm that specializes in counterterrorism litigation. It alleges that Masri, Chairman of the Palestine Development and Investment Company (PADICO) and Massar International, knowingly worked with Hamas despite the group’s designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. government.
The complaint casts a spotlight on several facets of the Hamas terror tunnel enterprise that until now have not been well understood by either policymakers or the public. In fact, this comes down to three elements of nature that are as fundamental to human life as any others: earth, sun, and water. These elements turned out to be essential to Hamas’s strategy of tunnel warfare.
Earth
In the first few weeks of Israel’s military operation in Gaza after October 7th, 2023, the focus was on the earth — the IDF cleared parts of Gaza’s urban terrain to expose Hamas’s attack tunnels. That below ground infrastructure helped to conceal Hamas’s movements, weapons depots, and of course, Israeli hostages seized on October 7.
According to the lawsuit, Masri’s properties were very much part of that infrastructure: First, they provided invisible access points to a growing web of tunnels. Second, Masri’s hotels and construction projects at the Gaza Industrial Estate (GIE) helped conceal tunnel digging by providing plausible reasons for the presence of excavating equipment and the removal of large quantities of earth. To put it simply, Masri’s two luxury hotels and the leading industrial zone in Gaza contributed to the creation of the most sophisticated tunnel system ever built in war – in terms of scale, equipment, functionality, and connectivity.
According to the complaint, Masri personally presided over the signing of a joint venture agreement with Hamas to rebuild parts of Gaza’s main industrial zone with the help of a construction firm closely tied to the Qassam Brigades. While the GIE housed some legitimate businesses, it also became a crucial Hamas operations hub. One of its tunnels, exposed in 2018, crossed into Israeli territory near the kibbutz of Nahal Oz.
The lawsuit makes clear that Hamas’s tunnels are hardly an amateur endeavor. They require significant experience and engineering expertise and, among other things, a keen understanding of soil composition. The complaint points to Dr. Muhamad Ziyara —a professor at Hamas’s Islamic University of Gaza who provided expertise to the Qassam Brigades. Over time, Hamas developed a cadre of professional tunnel engineers with specialized know-how to excavate increasingly deep and well-equipped tunnels, most of it under dense urban areas.
Hamas’s tunnel warfare strategy also requires an understanding of the logistical environment necessary for the tunnels to remain operational during prolonged and active hostilities. Unlike the improvised tunnels used in prison escapes, Hamas’s tunnels are intended for prolonged use, weapon manufacturing, and equipment and weapons storage. These types of tunnels cannot fulfill their functions without ventilation, lighting, and sewage. In short, they require reliable sources of electricity — which brings us to the sun.
Sun
Despite having withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, Israel continued to supply Palestinians with about 50% of their electricity needs. Palestinian and international organizations like the EU and UN have sought to minimize Gaza’s reliance on Israeli sources of energy. Prior to October 7th they had done this, and together with the World Bank, they funded projects to install solar panels throughout Gaza. By some estimates, on the eve of the attack, Gaza had the world’s highest density of rooftop solar panels. Renewable energy enhanced the resilience of Gaza’s electricity sector – a development welcomed by the Hamas regime in Gaza, international development agencies, and Israel.
According to the lawsuit, this is where Masri again entered the picture. When international and U.S.-taxpayer decided to fund projects aimed at developing solar power and other “green” energy infrastructure in Gaza, Masri and his companies used the funding to install solar panels on the roofs of their properties and allegedly diverted some of the electricity generated to power the tunnels built under those properties. The substantial and reliable energy generated by the World Bank-funded solar panels was crucial to powering ventilation and lighting, without which the tunnels could not be used for long periods of time.
Water
Groundwater in Gaza presented a significant constraint to Hamas’s development of deep tunnel infrastructure, particularly closer the Mediterranean shoreline. The water level of Gaza’s Coastal Aquifer ranges from about 200 feet below the surface in the east to just a few meters deep near the coastline. The complaint reveals that, With the help of its engineers, Hamas overcame this challenge and adjusted the depth and routes of its tunnels to match not only soil type and topography but also water tables. The location of the Blue Beach Hotel and Al Mashtal hotels at the edge of the Shati refugee camp provided easy access to the Qassam Brigades’ training facility. The Blue Beach Hotel also provided Hamas with underground passageways to the Mediterranean. There, the coastal water table necessitated a far shallower tunnel system than was discovered in tunnel complexes built further from the coast.
No Blueprint
As Israel seeks a long-term resolution in Gaza and peace for its own people, at least one reality is clear: The pacification of Gaza must include the destruction of Hamas’s vast tunnel network and the entangling of the tunnels from the urban infrastructure above them.
That network took years to build and rebuild, and it will take an equally long time to map and destroy. There is no historical blueprint for an effort of this kind, particularly given the degree to which Hamas’s web of tunnels was woven into every facet of Gaza’s above-ground infrastructure, from hotels and schools to hospitals and private apartment buildings. Destroying such an intricate and elaborate infrastructure, which is so deeply embedded into civilian life in Gaza, has proved to be a highly complex undertaking.
Being realistic about the problem and possessing the willingness to confront the magnitude of the challenge is essential. So is accountability. Qatar and the international organizations that, according to the lawsuit, helped finance both Masri’s building projects and the Hamas tunnels beneath them must be recognized as part of the problem, and not part of the solution. The first small step toward accountability is to hold the enablers of Hamas’s terror tunnels legally accountable. This must begin with Bashar Masri, who resigned from the board of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in the immediate aftermath of the lawsuit’s filing, but who still receives a friendly reception in certain corners of Tel Aviv and Washington.
Over more than a decade, Hamas has overcome most engineering and military challenges that underground warfare traditionally comes with: changing soil quality, water tables, energy needs for ventilation and lighting, and the supply of food and water.
A combination of time, resources, and expertise made it possible for Hamas to exceed ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Viet Cong, among others, in using tunnels as key instrument of war. The funds received via development agencies and private investors significantly helped to finance this effort and set in motion a lengthy underground war. Neither the entrenchment of Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan nor that of AQIM in Mali or that of ISIS in Iraq and Syria compares. As the war for control of Gaza proceeds, policymakers will have to think long and hard not only about what comes afterward, but about who will be permitted to “invest” again in Gaza — and how to ensure that future reconstruction efforts will not, as before, include rebuilding the largest subterranean terror infrastructure the world has ever seen.
