I’ve written a few times about the Hamas tunnel system under Gaza, aka the Gaza Metro, which the terror group relies on for safety, transportation, weapons storage, etc. Yesterday the NY Times published a story about the tunnels which I would describe as a primer on the subject. It really feels like a children’s book version of the story for people who know nothing about it.

The Times has done some good reports about the tunnels in the past so this isn’t their first foray into the subject for the paper. Still, the artwork that goes with this makes it feel like its aimed at a different audience, maybe some of the young protesters who occupied the lobby of the NY Times building yesterday and demanded the paper be shut down. Here’s a taste of Hamas tunnels 101:

The Hamas militants who launched a bloody attack on Israel last month have built a maze of hidden tunnels some believe extend across most if not all of Gaza, the territory they control.

And they are not mere tunnels.

Snaking beneath dense residential areas, the passageways allow fighters to move around free from the eye of the enemy. There are also bunkers for stockpiling weapons, food and water, and even command centers and tunnels wide enough for vehicles, researchers believe.

Ordinary-looking doors and hatches serve as disguised access points, letting Hamas fighters dart out on missions and then slip back out of sight.

At the end of the story we get a section about the need to destroy the tunnels and why Israel probably won’t be sending people into them:

One of the main dangers of going into the tunnels is that Hamas has booby-trapped the entrances with explosives, experts say.

“The moment they realize the Israelis have entered the tunnels, they will just press the button and the entire thing could collapse on the Israelis,” said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at King’s College London who specializes in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

It’s all pretty basic and it made me wonder what the point was. But after I read some of the comments it made more sense. The point here wasn’t to add a bunch of new information, it was to ease people who may not have considered this before into the subject of what these tunnels mean for Gaza and for Israel. Many of the commenters seemed to get it. This is the #2 comment:

One question: given that anyone would have known Israel’s response to October 7, why weren’t/aren’t these tunnels being used to protect civilians-at the very least children? Instead Hamas organized about the most vicious attack possible to elicit the most brutal response imaginable without doing one thing to protect even their children. I just don’t understand.

I would say many of the students shouting “Free Palestine” also don’t understand because they haven’t thought about this at all. If they had they would also see the problem with endorsing a Hamas-run future for Gaza. The tunnels themselves are proof Hamas can’t continue in this role.

If the energy of building these tunnels would have been put to development for the people of Gaza there be a thriving Palestine community.

Now the issue is not who will “govern ” Gaza but who will rebuild it? Leave governing to the politicians but developing and rebuilding discussions will win hearts. Ship construction materials to Gaza, rebuild homes, schools, hospitals and farms . Hamas is out.

Another one:

Well, this schematic sums it up pretty well. A hidden city under a city. And for everyone screaming about Israel’s blockade, it apparently hasn’t been too effective. The tunnel system didn’t get built with magic materials and magic carpets.

You gotta hand it to Hamas — they knew Israel would strike back hard, but they wanted to win the PR war. And they succeeded in getting many people marching and protesting around the world because they stuck their citizens right over those targets.

As you read the comments, you get the impression the entire article exists to elicit reactions just like this:

So that’s where all that well-intended international aid is going. A marvel of engineering, fortitude, labor, brute force, technology, courage and imagination. None of it to protect or better the lives of anyone in Gaza except for Hamas.

I’m not cherry-picking these, I’m just going down the list of the top comments. There are lots more saying the same thing. I think this one really sums it up.

Tunneling is one of the most expensive and resource intensive enterprises known to man, the cost of the “Gaza metro” must reach billions of dollars. Imagine how much better the life of the Palestinian people would be if Hamas would have spent those billions of dollars of foreign aid on hospitals, schools, desalination plants, solar panels etc.

Hamas is absolutely the worst thing to have happened to the Palestinian people, similar to the equally ethnocentric and fanatical regimes of Germany and Japan during WW2, the life of the Palestinian people will never improve while Hamas exists, keep in mind that even if Israel where to cease to exist Hamas would blanket the middle east with a fundamentalist, corrupt and oppressive regime equal or worse to the Taliban in Afghanistan, where human suffering knows no bounds.

There is no future for any civilization under Hamas or alongside Hamas. All they will ever do is soak up all the resources for their underground caliphate. If people really want to free Palestine, they should start by trying to free it from Hamas.

Anyway, it’s worth a click over to have a look at the drawings which are pretty nice. I hope a lot of pro-Palestinian protesters see them.