Friday, November 03, 2023
Elder of ZiyonIf those claims are true, that means that Hamas' tunnel system is double that of the New York City subway system, at 145 miles (233 km) of tunnels. And New York City of double the size of Gaza.
Israel released a map of the Gaza "metro" in 2021 showing where the main tunnels were.
The New York Times has been publishing its own maps of which sections in Gaza have been hit by airstrikes based on satellite imagery. And for the northern section of Gaza, the two maps are strikingly similar:
What these two maps indicate is that when we see the scenes of devastation of buildings being destroyed, and when human rights groups say smugly that "we found no evidence of militant activity in the area" and accusing Israel of war crimes, the targets are usually underground - underneath those very buildings.
The map also shows that while Israel has hit multiple targets in the south, it has concentrated the bulk of its firepower in the north, exactly where Israel has warned Gaza civilians to evacuate from over the past three weeks. While the pundits have been claiming that such an evacuation was impossible, in fact over those three weeks a significant proportion of Gazans have relocated.
These maps show that Israel is not violating the rules of war. It is not shooting indiscriminately. It is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties.
And they prove that Hamas is the only party that is guilty of war crimes by deliberately locating its tunnels under civilian infrastructure.
