Hamas Leaders Admit to Building Tunnels to Kidnap Israelis

Hamas leaders confessed on Monday that they had been planning to kidnap Israelis using a recently discovered tunnel system burrowed deep beneath the Israeli-Gaza border, according to reports.

The admission that Hamas is still seeking to kidnap and ransom Israelis has renewed concerns that a new round of violent demonstrations known as an intifada could sweep the region and jeopardize nascent peace talks.

Israeli authorities revealed last week that they had discovered a complex 1.5-mile tunnel system running from the Gaza Strip into a nearby Israeli kibbutz.

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“They continue to call for renewed violence; whether an intifada or another campaign, they continue to call for it against Israel,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Treasury Department. “So this is consistent with that.”

“We’ve been looking at the prospect of a third intifada for a long time,” said Schanzer, a Middle East expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

Hamas has found itself in a difficult financial and political situation since the Egyptian military assumed control of the porous border region along the Sinai and Philadelphia Corridor.

The Egyptian military has sealed off many of the tunnels used to import illicit goods and weapons, leading Hamas to rely more greatly on Israel.

“They [Hamas] are in a lot of trouble right now financially and logistically,” Schanzer said. “They’ve had to rely on Israel for the goods that they need to cross the border. Ironically, the Israelis were their last friends.”

While news of the tunnel’s existence was made public just last week, Israeli defense officials knew of its existence for quite some time, according to Schanzer.

Israel allowed Hamas to continue building the tunnel in order to drain its resources and time.

“This was an expensive and time consuming endeavor, and the Israelis allowed them to do it right up until the end, making it something that kept Hamas busy and burned resources,” Schanzer said.

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