Hamas had command tunnel under UN Gaza HQ, Israeli military says

GAZA: Israeli forces have discovered a tunnel network hundreds of metres long and running partly under the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees' (UNRWA) Gaza headquarters, the military says, calling it new evidence of Hamas exploitation of the main relief agency for Palestinians.

Army engineers took reporters for foreign news outlets through the passages at a time of crisis for UNRWA, which has launched an internal probe and seen a string of donor countries freeze funding over allegations last month by Israel that some of its staff doubled as Hamas operatives. 

The Palestinians have accused Israel of falsifying information to tarnish UNRWA, which employs 13,000 people in the Gaza Strip and has been a lifeline for the aid-dependent population for years.

The agency runs schools, primary healthcare clinics and other social services, and distributes aid, describing its activities as purely humanitarian.

UNRWA headquarters is in Gaza City, among northern areas that Israeli troops and tanks overran early in the four-month-old war against Hamas, sending hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing southward. 

Israel's army and the Shin Bet security agency said operations in Gaza City in recent weeks had led to the discovery of a "tunnel shaft" near a school run by the humanitarian agency.

"The shaft led to an underground terror tunnel that served as a significant asset of Hamas's military intelligence and passed under the building that serves as UNRWA's main headquarters in the Gaza Strip," they added in a statement.

Documents and a stash of weapons in the UN compound itself "confirmed that the offices had in fact also been used by Hamas terrorists", the joint statement said.

Reporters on the closely escorted trip entered a shaft next to a school on the periphery of the UN compound, descending to the concrete-lined tunnel.

Twenty minutes of walking through the stifling hot, narrow and occasionally winding passage brought them underneath UNRWA headquarters, an army lieutenant-colonel leading the tour said.

The tunnel, which the military said was 700 metres long and 18 metres deep, bifurcated at times, revealing side-rooms.

There was an office space, with steel safes that had been opened and emptied. There was a tiled toilet. One large chamber was packed with computer servers, another with industrial battery stacks.

“Everything is conducted from here. All the energy for the tunnels, which you walked through them are powered from here," said the lieutenant-colonel, who gave only his first name as Ido.

"This is one of the central commands of the intelligence. This place is one of the Hamas intelligence units, where they commanded most of the combat."

But Ido said Hamas appeared to have evacuated in the face of the Israeli advance, preemptively cutting off communications cables that, in an above-ground part of the tour, he showed running through the floor of the UNRWA headquarters' basement.

It appeared that heavy Israeli barrages and sustained winter rains may also have played a part in the departure: Several stretches of the tunnel were clogged with dislodged sand and knee-high water.

In a statement, UNRWA said it had vacated the headquarters on Oct 12, five days after the war began, and was therefore "unable to confirm or otherwise comment" on the Israeli finding.

"UNRWA ... does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises," the statement said.

"In the past, whenever (a) suspicious cavity was found close to or under UNRWA premises, protest letters were promptly filed to parties to the conflict, including both the de facto authorities in Gaza (Hamas) and the Israeli authorities." 

MORE CALLS FOR UNRWA HEAD TO RESIGN

UNRWA's supporters say it is the only agency with the means of aiding Palestinians in deepening humanitarian distress. 

But Israel says the agency is "perforated by Hamas" and must be replaced. Hamas has denied operating in civilian facilities.

"We know that they (Hamas) have people working in UNRWA. We want every international organization to work in Gaza. That is not a problem. Our problem is the Hamas," Ido told reporters. 

Israel's foreign minister on Saturday (Feb 10) called for the head of UNRWA to quit, following Israeli claims that a Hamas tunnel had been discovered under its evacuated Gaza City headquarters.

Israel Katz dismissed UNRWA commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini's claim that he was unaware of its presence as "not only absurd but also an affront to common sense". 

Katz claimed the discovery showed UNRWA's "deep involvement" with Hamas. Hamas has previously denied Israeli claims that it has dug an extensive network of tunnels under schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as cover for its activities.

"His prompt resignation is imperative," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Lazzarini, already under pressure after Israel claimed some UNRWA staff were involved in the Oct 7 attack by Hamas, said the agency had not operated from the compound since Oct 12.

Instead he called for an independent investigation. 

"We have not used that compound since we left it nor are we aware of any activity that may have taken place there," he added.

Lack of cellphone reception in the tunnel made geolocating it as under UNRWA headquarters impossible. Instead, reporters were asked to put personal items in a bucket that was lowered by rope into a vertical hole on the grounds of the headquarters. They were reunited with the still-tethered items during the tunnel tour.

As a condition of taking journalists on the trip, the Israeli military did not allow photographs of military intelligence such as maps or certain equipment in the convoy of armoured vehicles they travelled in. It also requested approval before transmission of photographs and video footage taken on the trip.

The UN has launched two separate probes into UNRWA, the first into Israeli claims that 12 of its staff may have participated on Oct 7, and the other a review of its overall political neutrality.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has spoken out in defence of the agency, calling it the "backbone" of Gaza aid.

So too has US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said it played an "absolutely indispensable role in trying to make sure that men, women and children who so desperately need assistance in Gaza actually get it".