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Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Report: Hamas’s Gaza tunnel network much longer than IDF thought, has 5,700 access shafts

Israeli soldiers show the media an underground tunnel found underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, November 22, 2023. (AP/Victor R. Caivano, File)
The New York Times cites anonymous senior Israeli defense officials who assess that Hamas’s Gaza tunnel network is between 350 and 450 miles long.
This estimate is far longer than the one the IDF made just a month ago and is astoundingly high given that Gaza is only 25 miles long.
The two senior Israeli defense officials speaking with NYT also assess that there are roughly 5,700 separate shafts leading down to the tunnels.
“The numbers could not be independently verified, and there are varying estimates by Israeli officials for the increased scope of the tunnel network, based on different intelligence,” NYT says.