The Israeli military released video footage on January 25 showing what it says is the demolition of an approximately four-kilometre tunnel complex belonging to Hamas in southern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the network as containing weapons and multiple living chambers, and said the neutralisation operation concluded this month after work that began about a year ago.
In a separate statement the IDF said that following a firefight in Rafah last week in which six militants were killed, troops recovered military equipment, a bomb‑making manual and at least one explosive device. The military also reported finding five abandoned rocket launchers at another site in Rafah. As of publication, Hamas had not issued a response to the Israeli statements.
Tunnels have been a persistent element of Palestinian militant strategy in Gaza, used for smuggling, command and control, movement of fighters and staging attacks inside Israel. A four‑kilometre subterranean system with living quarters suggests a degree of engineering and operational depth that complicates any effort to degrade militant capabilities from the air or at the perimeter.
For the IDF the public disclosure serves several immediate purposes: to demonstrate operational progress in dismantling Hamas’s underground infrastructure, to justify continued ground and engineering operations in the south, and to shape domestic and international narratives about the nature of the threat. For Hamas, the loss of tunnel capacity—if confirmed—would be a tactical setback but not necessarily decisive given the group’s demonstrated ability to adapt and rebuild under pressure.
The discovery of explosive devices and a bomb‑making manual in Rafah highlights the dual security and humanitarian dilemmas in the densely populated border city. Rafah’s proximity to the Egyptian border and its role as a refuge for displaced Gazans make it a focal point for both military operations and diplomatic friction, raising the risk of civilian harm and international scrutiny as Israeli forces pursue militant networks.
Looking ahead, the removal of a major tunnel complex may slow certain Hamas operations and constrain movement within southern Gaza, but it also risks prompting a tactical shift by militants toward dispersal, decentralised attacks and increased use of improvised weapons. The episode underlines the technical and political challenges of counter‑tunnel campaigns: effective neutralisation requires sustained engineering resources and incurs collateral consequences that will influence regional diplomacy and humanitarian access.