Since the beginning of Israel’s major offensive inside Gaza, locating and destroying Hamas’s vast warren of tunnels has been a central but elusive war aim.

The network is believed to stretch for 310 miles with up to 5,700 shafts, a far higher estimate than Israel expected before Oct 7.

As Israel bombarded the Strip relentlessly from above, thousands of Hamas militants buried themselves deep within the labyrinth below, dubbed Gaza’s metro.

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, is believed to still be alive “10 storeys underground”, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has said.

Thwarting Hamas’s ability to use the tunnels has been the lynchpin in Israel’s effort to capture its top leaders and rescue the surviving hostages.

But the sheer depth and scale of the iron and concrete tunnels have prevented this. They form an impossible landscape where guerilla fighting rules and booby traps, ambushes and dead ends await Israeli soldiers unaccustomed to such a dark and unfamiliar battlefield.

Israeli officials now believe it could take years for its military to truly dismantle tunnels, a timeframe its military will not be allowed amid international pressure to end the nearly 10-month war, which has left more than 39,500 Palestinians dead, according to Gazan authorities.

In July 2024, an IDF assessment revealed much of the tunnel network was in a “good functioning state” in many parts of Gaza, including Rafah, while tunnels in Khan Younis have already begun to be mended.