Overview
- The Israel Defense Forces said on Monday it completed the permanent sealing of a tunnel network in southern Rafah that it says runs for more than 16 kilometers.
- IDF units including Gaza Division engineers, Southern Command teams, the Yahalom combat engineering unit and Shayetet 13 naval commandos carried out the project over about three months.
- The military said crews poured over 30,000 cubic meters of concrete to fill the passages and that the complex included roughly 80 living quarters used for command-and-control.
- The IDF linked the site to Lt. Hadar Goldin’s 2014 abduction and noted his remains were returned to Israel for burial in November 2025 as part of a hostage-return agreement.
- Israeli statements say the tunnel ran beneath homes, mosques, schools, clinics and a UNRWA facility and that sealing it will degrade Hamas’s subterranean infrastructure, though these claims come from the IDF and lack independent verification.