Hamas' booby-traps have killed dozens of soldiers in Gaza, IDF admits

Hamas booby-trapped Palestinian children’s bedrooms with explosives in preparation for an Israeli attack following the October 7 massacres, IDF sources have said.

In a special briefing, tunnel experts for the Israeli Defence Force admitted that Israel had “completely underestimated” the extent of Hamas’ sophisticated underground tunnel network before launching operations in Gaza.

Instead of discovering separate underground compounds for senior Hamas commanders and hiding cages for hostages, there is just a single and completely connected network which makes up 350 miles of excavated tunnel, linking Beit Hanoun in the north all the way to the southern border.

Some are as much as 65 feet deep and they all link to buildings above ground.

The whitewashed tunnel corridors are small, typically measuring 5 feet high and very narrow, though the cells they lead to are larger, and it is into these that most hostages were placed.

“Just imagine your daughter or sister or mother being kidnapped and forced to walk more than one-and-a-half-miles along the tunnels to the cage that had been pre-positioned for them,” an IDF officer told a gathering of journalists attached to the Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA)

He added: “We entered this war very naïve. We knew about our enemy and we thought we knew what to expect. But our troops were shocked.

“We discovered that Hamas’ centre of gravity was underground.

“Every home has weapons, grenades or bombs, and every seemingly innocent place is connected to the tunnel network. We can't begin to imagine how much it cost to build."

In Jabalia, IDF forces uncovered 41 tunnel entrances and found 85 rockets and 12 sniper posts.

“80 per cent of housing is booby trapped,” said the source.

“Some had large quantities of explosives inside walls waiting for IDF soldiers to arrive.

"The explosives were placed in kids' rooms - children had to actually live surrounded by these explosives. That’s how cynical Hamas are. This is how the IDF found hundreds of houses throughout the Gaza Strip.

"Though we use dogs to detect explosives - which have saved lives - these booby traps have killed dozens of IDF soldiers, so now we don't approach the houses in the same way."

Crucially, many tunnels and weapons stockpiles have been deliberately placed underneath schools, mosques and hospitals to protect them from aerial attacks.

In a separate briefing, senior officers for Israel's Military Advocate General regiment told how every pre-planned strike was checked with a raft of legal advisors for “proportionality” in the event of collateral damage, such as buildings collapsing.

A senior army source added: "Hamas has deliberately placed its tunnel shafts and stockpiles under civilian buildings - schools, hospitals and even mosques- because they know they are vulnerable to attack from the air.

"Yet there are many operations which we do not sign-off because the risk to life is not proportional to the mission objective. And that would be illegal."

Asked how it felt to be accused of genocide, the IDF legal expert replied: "In what other conflict does one side signal its intention to attack a position by telling civilians to evacuate? We know that this practice has cost Israeli lives, but we do it because it is right, and it is a legal requirement.

"We know the law, and that we are not breaking it.

"So to be accused of genocide, of all things, really hurts. It hurts bad."