Daphné Richemond-Barak
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.
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