IDF reveals Hamas diverted 'precious resources' – thousands of tons of concrete, steel – to build its vast tunnel network

The Israeli military revealed on Thursday that the terror organization Hamas used some 1,800 tons of steel and more than 6,000 tons of concrete for the construction of its vast tunnel network below the Gaza Strip.

Israel Defense Forces emphasized in its official statement that Hamas diverted resources from civilian projects at the expense of the wider Gazan civilian population.

“The Hamas terror organization chose to invest these precious resources in building a terror infrastructure used to harm Israeli citizens and IDF forces, while cynically exploiting the civilian population in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli military said.

Israeli authorities assessed that Hamas, with support from the Iranian regime, had spent millions of dollars on its terror tunnel infrastructure instead of building new hospitals and schools for the civilian population in Gaza. Hamas is believed to have spent billions of dollars to build its regime in Gaza.

The Israeli army also revealed new images of tunnel infrastructure in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis area, where Hamas may have been holding some hostages captive.

“After investigating the tunnel, it can be said that there were Israeli hostages in it,” according to the IDF.

Some 3,000 terrorists from Gaza invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, brutally killing more than 1,200 Israelis, and abducting some 240 Israelis and foreign nationals as hostages into the Gaza Strip.

Around 100 hostages were released in late November as a result of a hostage-for-prisoners exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. The vast majority of the released hostages were women, children and the elderly. Many of the hostages have since testified about horrific abuse at the hands of the Hamas terrorist operatives in Gaza. Some 130 hostages are believed to remain inside the Gaza Strip. However, it is unknown how many of them are still alive.

The majority of the remaining hostages are believed to be held in underground tunnels in southern Gaza, possibly below the city of Khan Younis, which is a major Hamas stronghold and the hometown of Hamas Gaza terror leader Yahya Sinwar.

In recent weeks, the Israeli military has scaled back on its military operations in northern Gaza, as most remaining Hamas terrorists are believed to be in the southern part of the coastal enclave. At the same time, the Israeli army has intensified its military operations in the south, especially around Khan Younis.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who recently visited IDF troops on the outskirts of Khan Younis, praised the large number of IDF soldiers operating in the area against Hamas terror forces.

“There are a great many troops inside, west of here, operating within Khan Younis in a very, very impressive manner, above ground and below,” Gallant said.

Gallant, a retired IDF general and former naval commando, rejected the “genocide” charges leveled against the Jewish state by the South African government at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The Israeli defense minister stressed that the IDF “still differentiates each day between [terrorists] who need to be eliminated and those who are uninvolved, for whom we provide access to humanitarian aid, medicine, food, water; to separate between the civilian population and murderous lowlife terrorists who we will hunt until they are finished off.”