After locating hundreds of tunnels and destroying many of them using various techniques, soldiers from the Israel Air Force's Shaldag' Special Forces Unit are conducting operational activities within the Hamas terrorist organization's subterranean tunnel network.
Led by the Southern Command, the combat in underground tunnels is a complex form of warfare, involving the discovery of combat facilities and terrorist command centers.
Underground warfare is a combat strategy used by the Hamas terrorist organization. Since the beginning of the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, IDF troops have identified about 1,500 tunnel shafts and underground passages belonging to Hamas.
Most of these subterranean structures have been found beneath schools, hospitals, mosques, UN facilities and civilian institutions.
The IDF stated that "Hamas uses the civilian population as a human shield, a fact that becomes evident in the locations of these underground facilities in the Gaza Strip."