The mammoth spiderweb of underground tunnels used by Hamas to shuttle militants, hostages and weapons around beneath the Gaza Strip is “something that we cannot even imagine,” according to “Fauda” creator Avi Issacharoff.
Issacharoff — an Arabic-speaking Israeli journalist and former IDF soldier who co-wrote the award-winning show “Fauda” — visited Gaza a number of times before Hamas took over the territory in 2007, according to The Times of Israel.
He said the latticework extends underneath the entire length of the 140-square-mile Gaza Strip and gives Hamas the ability to launch swift, Viet Cong-style hit-and-run attacks on the invading Israeli forces.
“It’s very dense, it’s a huge system of tunnels that allow Hamas to transport terrorists and hostages — but also motorbikes and artillery and rockets and everything you can imagine,” Issacharoff, who is a former member of an elite special operations unit, told the media Sunday as he spoke about the difficulties of a ground incursion into the dense urban enclave.
He added that those tunnels are exactly where Hamas’ members fled after their Oct. 7 attack, which is when they launched rockets into Israel and sent gunmen across the fortified border to murder and kidnap Israeli civilians.
“They all went underground, under the houses of Gaza City,” Issacharoff said, according to the outlet. “They’re hiding behind a human shield.”
Issacharoff and “Fauda” co-creator Lior Raz set the third season of the Netflix-streamed show in Gaza — even though it wasn’t shot there because Israelis have been barred from the land since the Jewish state withdrew its soldiers and settlers in 2005, the Times of Israel said.
But Gaza has become a war zone once again after Hamas’ assault, which sparked the bloodiest Israel-Palestine fighting since Israel’s creation 75 years ago.
The Israeli army — which has promised to crush Hamas — has severed the northern portion of the territory and pummeled it with airstrikes ahead of expected ground battles with Hamas terrorists.
Issacharoff said IDF troops are approaching Gaza City’s downtown and Shifa Hospital, the city’s largest medical complex that the IDF says sits atop a terrorist headquarters.
“I swear, every kid in Gaza knows there’s a Hamas headquarters under Shifa, but no one talks about it,” Issacharoff said, according to the Times of Israel.
The Palestinian death toll has passed 10,000 and includes many women and children, according to Hamas officials.
That’s likely to get worse as the violence continues, Issacharoff said.
“This is not a surgical operation,” Issacharoff said. “It’s a war. It’s a war where the enemy has located itself inside the local population and that is the aim of Hamas, because it makes the other side look like devils, like war criminals.”
About 1,400 Israelis have also died — most of whom were killed during Hamas’ initial cross-border incursion. Another 240 people have been taken hostage and remain in Gaza.
Issacharoff added that he thinks any post-war plan needs to include the Palestinian Authority — but that would necessitate talks between Israel and the group, which hasn’t happened yet, the outlet said.
“I don’t see any kind of victory going out of this mess,” Issacharoff said.
With Post wires