Inside the Hamas tunnels that protect terrorists while civilians suffer

The GB News team was in the outskirts of Shejaiya, a city in the north of the Gaza Strip. Surrounding the entrance to a tunnel were the remains of four civilian houses, turned to rubble by IDF combat engineers as they cleared the area of terrorist infrastructure. One kilometre deeper into the strip was a school. Tunnels connected the two locations. They are part of a labyrinth of terror tunnels uncovered in the three years since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7. We entered Gaza via an Israeli kibbutz called Nahal Oz, which was devastated on October 7. Eighteen were kidnapped; sixteen civilians were murdered. Female observer troops were burned alive inside the situation room observing the border. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say An infantry battalion drove us 1.5 kilometres inside the Gaza Strip. It’s here in February that an IDF soldier called Arkadi discovered a major tunnel complex, which is named after him. We walked hundreds of metres through the tunnels, climbing down stairs that led to 20 metres below the surface. The IDF showed us a section that they have not yet destroyed. Charlie Peters was granted access to what once was a vital Hamas base | GB NEWS It laid bare the extent of the infrastructure that Hamas and allied groups such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have used to sustain its terror campaign on Gaza and Israel. The tunnels were cramped, reinforced with concrete and sandbags, and stretched on for kilometres in claustrophobic spaces. IDF soldiers with M4 rifles patrolled ahead of us as we navigated through the labyrinth. We were shown bathrooms with working sinks, an area that was likely used for laundry, and even a tiled room that boasted mattresses and tables and chairs. This room was said to have been used by senior Hamas officers. LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Six Somali pirates seize tanker as fresh attacks threaten global shipping and UK energy prices Welcome to 'Visa Street' - where 27 businesses brought in up to 350 migrants on skilled worker visas Navy boss shares personal story amid WW2 veteran battlefield visit funding Hamas operates in tunnels beneath the Gaza strip | GB NEWS But the room was eerily similar to those we have seen in footage of hostages being terrorised in Hamas captivity. Crouching through the maze, other segments included storage rooms for weapons and blast doors for fighting against Israelis entering the tunnels. Hamas would have been able to close these tunnels with the blast doors if IDF soldiers breached them while they were inside and fire through the slits, getting critical line of sight for their weapons without revealing themselves behind the doors. These cramped and cannelised areas would have been terrifying for soldiers approaching them. Blast doors are among many obstacles facing troops underground. It’s difficult for the IDF to fight in the tunnels due to their overlapping and widespread nature. If they push in one direction, terrorists can push through new routes from the side. Israeli fighters use a special tactic for fighting in the tunnels involving explosives. Instead of sending soldiers into the tunnel to place C4, they instead pour liquid explosives into the spaces that cover the whole space. They call it emulsion explosives. This tactic limits Hamas from building new avenues to ambush soldiers as they operate in the tunnels. An IDF official says that this new tactic prevents the rebuilding of tunnels in 95% of cases. Heading underground remains an extremely risky task for IDF operatives | GB NEWS Hamas and its associated terror groups have worked to adapt to these new tactics. There are corridors protected with blast doors that allow them to shut off and ambush Israelis as they push into their caverns of terror. An IDF official showed us a map of the tunnels discovered by the force’s combat engineers. Eighty percent of the tunnels had been destroyed across Gaza before the ceasefire, when the IDF handed back control to Hamas. They do not know how many tunnels have been rebuilt. The biggest tunnel that the IDF has found since the start of the war was so large that cars could fit inside it. It was built in secret. It was just 400 metres from the Erez Crossing in Israeli territory, being built right under the IDF’s noses. Who can say how effective their subterranean terror development has been while operating in their territory? The fear in Israel is that while it winds down combat operations, Hamas will reorganise and prepare to launch new attacks. Of the 6,000 people who crossed from Gaza into Israel in the October 7 massacre, 4,000 have been killed. Major General Shlomi Binder, head of the IDF's Military Intelligence, said last week: “There are 2,000 remaining, and we will get to every last one of them.” Over 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire, with around half of them being described by the IDF as terrorists. They are either those who crossed the yellow line, breaching the ceasefire agreement, or marked men who took part in October 7. Operations to kill terrorists had been busy in the week before GB News entered the strip. On Sunday, the IDF eliminated Saqr Nabil Musa Qaisi, a Hamas terrorist. On Friday, Ibrahim Mustafa Suleiman Abu Oweimer, a commander of Hamas special forces — called the Nubkha force — was eliminated. Some rocket commanders were also killed on the weekend. Hamas militants, pictured in 2012 | REUTERS It was a hot time to be entering the territory, with commanders warning us to keep our heads down as we approached a bank of mud and rubble that overlooked deeper into Shejaiya. We had just been shown some of the weapons that the IDF said had been taken from Hamas since the start of the war. It included long-range heavy sniper rifles, more than capable of reaching us from the buildings in the distance. An Israeli drone buzzed above our heads, keeping an eye on the ground. There were no thuds of bombs, rockets or rattling machine guns around us today. We were lucky. On my last visit in January, the few hours we spent further south in Deir al-Balah passed to the metronome of mortars. Back in Shejaiya, an IDF Commander told us that his team is still finding new tunnels. But the IDF only controls about 60 per cent of Gaza. They fear that Hamas is busily building new terrorist infrastructure in its areas, preparing for new attacks. There is a sense here that their mission is doomed. They can only destroy so many tunnels in the area that they control. Despite being around that city for almost three years, they only discovered the Arkadi tunnel complex in February 2026. As we exited the tunnel, I went into one of the piles of rubble, a site that was formerly a home. In the rubble beneath me was a small piece of glass with a star-like copper design; a tiny piece of evidence that humans were here once. Above the ground there was nothing but destruction; below me, terrorists had been free to live in protection, the tiles in their bedrooms undamaged by Israeli weaponry. This has been the crux at the heart of the war in Gaza. Hamas uses civilians as human shields and then maximises the impact of civilian suffering to turn the world’s hearts and minds against the Jewish state. But it is also the only war where there are almost no refugees, as Egypt will not allow Palestinians to exit the Rafah crossing and into the relative safety of Sinai. I do not know who lived in the house I was standing in today. But I am almost certain that they remain trapped in a chasm of brainwashed Islamists on one side and on the other is an army that cannot allow those terrorists to continue to exist. There is no escape for them. For Hamas, there are the tunnels. Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter