While Hamas claims Gaza suffers from unbearable levels of poverty, the terror organization spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to build and maintain its massive terror tunnel network.
With operations along the Israeli and Egyptian borders, the Hamas tunnel system employs a veritable army of over 1,000 regular diggers.
According to a report on Israel Radio, these diggers are paid $300-400 a month.
Aside from the diggers themselves, maintaining and expanding the tunnels requires large-scale smuggling by Hamas, which invests heavily in efforts to bring electric drilling equipment, raw materials, and building materials like cement in from Israel and Egypt.
Beyond enabling smuggling into Gaza, the tunnels are used by Hamas’ elite combat unit, Al Nukhbeh, which is trained to operate in the expansive tunnel network dug near the border with Israel, in anticipation of future terror attacks on Israel
Several Al Nukhbeh fighters were recently killed when a tunnel they were operating in collapsed.
Speaking on Israel Radio, one Israeli official noted that the amount of money Hamas has invested in building and maintaining its tunnel network would have been sufficient to build entire residential neighborhoods in the Gaza strip.