Israel Defense Forces have prepared for their upcoming attack. The military group will build salt water pumps to flood Hamas tunnels in the Gaza Strip used by militants to move during the group's attacks against civilians.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the IDF discussed their plan with US officials in Washington last month.
IDF Builds Salt Water Pumps to Flood Hamas Tunnels
Israel plans to use salt water to drown out the terrorists and neutralize the tunnels. However, according to The Western Journal, the US officials said they did not know how close the Israeli government was to carrying out the plan as Israel has not made a final decision to move ahead.
"Sentiment inside the US was mixed. Some US officials privately expressed concern about the plan, while other officials said the US supports the disabling of the tunnels and said there wasn't necessarily any US opposition to the plan," the Journal said.
The report said that the IDF has identified and mapped out an estimated 800 tunnels that Hamas uses to move weapons and personnel from location to location undetected. However, the IDF believes the number of tunnels could be much higher.
Some of the hostages taken by Hamas were reportedly accompanied around Gaza in the underground network during the October 7 attack against Israel.
The pumps that could be used in the plan if carried out were currently employed to desalinate water for Gaza. According to the Journal, one person shared that the IDF was still trying to assess how the plan might work.
The person said they were unsure how successful the pumping would be since nobody knew the details of the tunnels and the ground around them. The source added that it was impossible to tell if the plan would be effective because they did not understand how seawater would drain in tunnels no one had been in before.
"The IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas's terror capabilities in various ways, using different military and technological tools," Israel said. The Journal reported at least five pumps were set up weeks ago near Gaza's Al-Shati refugee camp.
The pumps could flood Hamas' entire tunnel network within a matter of weeks with the ability to pump thousands of cubic meters per hour.
Israel-Hamas War
Israel and the Palestinian militant group have been fighting in a war that has killed thousands, which resulted in a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Hamas militants took over 200 civilians into Gaza and killed more than 1,400 people after the group carried out its October 7 attack, the biggest terrorist attack in the country's history.
Israel's retaliation resulted in more than 10,000 people killed, and more than 2 million Palestinians were trapped, lacking basic supplies and with nowhere to escape Israel's bombs.
After the October 7 attack, aid groups, Arab states, and the United Nations have repeatedly called for a ceasefire to allow for the delivery of food, water, medical supplies, and other necessities.
