«This was a bustling area. There are buildings of rich people here. Colonel Benny Aharon, commander of the 401st Armored Brigade, explains to journalists what Palestine Square was like, a nerve center of power in Gaza today reduced to rubble and buildings ruined by bombs. In this place full of businesses, senior Hamas military and political officials worked and lived, as well as some of their relatives. The daughter of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the organization's political office, had a luxury penthouse in one of the blocks. Nearby opened the shutters of an exclusive wedding dress house.
Palestine Square is located in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. The army finished controlling it this Wednesday after a series of complex battles in which 600 jihadists died in just one week. Its occupation has been celebrated in Israel. This enclave symbolized the political, administrative and military power of Hamas by concentrating the institutional buildings of the Government of Gaza. For many Palestinians, crossing this roundabout could be a difficult experience. Above all, when passing in front of the headquarters of the Police and the security service, an inquisitive and brutal espionage apparatus dedicated especially to searching for Israeli collaborationists among the civilian population.
But, beyond the symbolism, the reason that has really satisfied the Defense Forces is to have brought to light a vast underground complex where the political and military elite of the Strip lived and hid. “The complex includes a large network of tunnels connecting terrorist hideouts, offices, apartments and residences belonging to senior Hamas leaders,” reports Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lermer. It is an “underground terrorist city” that acts as a “strategic tunnel route connected to other important underground infrastructure in the Strip,” says a statement from the Defense Forces, prior to blowing up the passageways with explosives to render the bastion useless. .
The first reconnaissance, in fact, has determined that several galleries converge in the square that link to the main underground headquarters of the jihadists in northern Gaza, the Al-Shifa and Rantisi hospitals, as well as the four-kilometer-long passage that Soldiers found days ago near the Israeli border, capable of housing vehicles and listed as one of the main gates used by terrorists during the October 7 massacre. The connectivity of this square allowed Hamas leaders and government officials to move around the Strip sheltered from satellites and Israeli Intelligence services. As demonstrated during the invasion, they have also been effective in facilitating the escape of senior political officials, businessmen and employees of the Gazan administration who resided in the Gazan center of power.
The swarm
Palestine Square resembles a swarm of cement passageways that link the underground and the buildings like a blood network. The homes of jihadist leaders and government buildings contain doors, many of them hidden, that give access to the wells to descend into the underground city. At least twenty mouths have been found. Ismael Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar, the three main heads of the movement, had personal tunnels.
The construction is quite sophisticated for a work carried out in apparent clandestinity, which involves rather rudimentary methods and means. The entrance to the complex used by Mohammed Deif, the commander of the armed brigades, has an elevator that descends to the first level twenty meters below. Next door, the soldiers have found two wheelchairs. Deif suffered serious injuries years ago in an Israeli air strike intended to assassinate him. The first rooms are distributed on that level. A staircase descends another many meters and connects with other rooms and homes staggered at different heights.
This is not the first time that the army has found elevators or spiral staircases in militia shelters, designed to take advantage of the space. However, it is surprising that the jihadists could excavate and assemble such an imposing infrastructure in the middle of a bustling square, with shops and administrative offices where civilians continually entered and left. “It's hard to believe that the people who lived here didn't see trucks and dozens of people digging,” says Colonel Aharon.
The three Hamas leaders and senior officials at the top of the military and political chain of command had private homes and offices underground with electricity and communication systems. A large part of the energy came from the solar panels spread across the roofs of the buildings in the square. They could work and live a more or less normal life without fear of being attacked or captured. “They built the underground infrastructure for decades, with the aim of protecting themselves and their officials,” observes the colonel, who explains how in the surroundings there are many “normal civilian houses, in which people seem to live in day to day, but that in reality they are a hiding place for terrorists or that underneath they have meeting rooms where all Hamas officials met.
Water and food
In the underground departments the army has found water and food, reserves presumably intended so that the Islamist leaders could spend a long time in hiding. The abundance of packages raises the suspicion that the Islamist leaders planned to stay in Palestine Square and continue running Gaza from its depths after the massacre of the kibbutzim. According to this hypothesis, the militia did not expect such an intense military response, especially with two hundred hostages in their possession.
However, indications are that they used the branches to hastily flee to other Gaza strongholds, leaving along the way documents that the Shin Bet, Israeli Intelligence, has begun to study and that will probably provide it with information about other hidden jihad headquarters. . Perhaps in one of them they will locate their top leaders, although so far the tangle of tunnels has overcome the efforts of thousands of soldiers.
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