WSJ: Israel Ready To Flood Hamas Tunnels With Seawater, Pumps Already Installed

The operation will take several weeks.

Israel is considering the idea of flooding the tunnels of the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip with sea water, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a U.S. official.

According to the report, in November, the IDF installed five large water pumps near al-Shati, a refugee camp in Gaza City. The pumps are powerful enough to pump thousands of cubic metres of water per hour into Hamas tunnels and thus flood them in a matter of weeks.

Israel has not yet decided whether it will do so, but warned US officials of the plan in November.

The reaction in the US, the WSJ writes, has been ambiguous, and some officials have expressed concern - particularly about potential harm to the enclave's aquifer and soil.

"We're not sure how successful the pumping will be because no one knows the details of the tunnels and the land around them. It's impossible to know if it will be effective because we don't know how seawater will flow in tunnels no one has ever been in before," the WSJ quoted its source as saying.

On December 3, the IDF said it had discovered more than 800 Hamas tunnel entrances since the start of the war and destroyed 500 of them.

On December 2, the IDF showed a Hamas tunnel entrance found in a schoolyard in the Gaza Strip.

On November 22, the IDF said it had discovered and destroyed more than 400 tunnels of Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

The network of tunnels was found under Al-Shifa Hospital, which the Israel Defence Forces described as the main base of Hamas activity.