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NBC News tours what IDF says is largest Hamas tunnel yet discovered
NORTHERN GAZA — As Israel says it’s nearly dismantled Hamas’ battalions in the northern Gaza Strip, NBC News today got a firsthand look at what the IDF says is the largest tunnel discovered so far.
It only takes about 10 minutes to walk from the destroyed Erez Crossing on the Israel-Gaza border, which was breached by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, to the tunnel’s entrance roughly a quarter-mile away.
As Israeli tanks occasionally rolled past, a vast wasteland of mangled steel, concrete blocks and dusty mounds of sand could be seen along the way. Workers on cherry pickers repair the concrete border barrier damaged during the Hamas incursion.
Not far in the distance, gunshots and artillery explosions were heard, as well as the buzz of Israeli drones overhead. No Palestinians were seen during the roughly two-hour visit.
NBC News and a handful of other foreign journalists were invited by the IDF to tour the tunnel, which Israel first disclosed earlier in December.
Roughly 10 feet high and reinforced with concrete, the tunnel also has shafts in the floor that extend vertically down below to what the IDF says is a sprawling network of offshoots and other levels. Although Israel’s military believes it has cleared any Hamas presence from the tunnel, troops with weapons drawn stand guard part way inside just in case.
The tunnel enters the ground at a diagonal angle, which enabled Hamas to drive vehicles into it, the IDF says. NBC News can’t independently verify how the tunnel was used or how recently.
Maj. Doron Spielman, an IDF spokesman, said Israel had known about the tunnel’s entrance, but not that it extended so close to Israeli territory.
“These are the big questions Israel’s going to ask when this war is over,” Speilman says in an interview outside the entrance.
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