It is certain that, through government taxes, most of our readers have contributed to the Hamas regime in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the “West Bank” (Judea and Samaria). The Palestinians have received billions of dollars of aid to build communities and infrastructure and develop agriculture.
But you must start at the bottom…and that’s what Palestinians have been doing for decades. Those funds were used to build elaborate tunnels crisscrossing Gaza, up to seven floors deep, some wide enough for a car to drive into, and some with elevators. An underground metro for the terrorists and their weapons and weapons factories, with electricity, phone lines, plumbing for sinks, showers and toilets, and cells for hostages. And yes, very many have been found under hospitals, schools and mosques, just as Israel claimed for years.
In Gaza alone, there are 560-725 kilometers (350-450 mi.) of tunnels, and 5,700 entry shafts (The New York Times, January 16, 2024), paid for by the generosity of the free world. Gazan civilians can earn money through menial jobs and small businesses, but the real money is in helping build the vast netherworld of terrorists.
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But not just in Gaza. Even in West Bank communities like Tarkomiya south of Jerusalem, the Israel Defense Forces discovered a warren of tunnels (youtube.com/watch?v=TybKdO8XbhY, January 3, 2024). What possible peaceful purpose could they serve?
The most sophisticated tunnels of all, however, are in southern Lebanon. Building began in the 1980s under North Korean military guidance and was copied by Hamas. Hizbullah’s 150,000 advanced rockets, GPS-guided missiles and launchers are hidden in the tunnels. Trucks inside the entrances pop out to fire rockets, then disappear back into their burrows in seconds. Some tunnels are 45 kilometers (28 mi.) long, says Tal Beeri, Israel’s chief tunnel expert (The Times of Israel, January 2, 2024).
Defeating the concealed enemy in Gaza is not easy, but Hizbullah’s terror apparatus in Lebanon is exponentially more formidable. Worse, Hizbullah, like Hamas, uses children as a shield.