Israel Will Get Bogged Down in Gaza’s Elaborate Tunnel Network, Iran Warns

The Israeli Defense Forces began ground raids into Gaza last week after two weeks of heavy missile, air and artillery strikes into the besieged Hamas-held territory. Iran has warned Tel Aviv and its American allies that the conflict could expand into a regional conflagration in the absence of an immediate ceasefire.

Hamas and its allies have dug hundreds of kilometers’ worth of tunnels, some of them large enough to drive vehicles through, and Israel will get bogged down and suffer heavy casualties if its offensive ground operation into the territory continues, Iranian military and diplomatic officials have warned.

“In the northern section of Gaza, what the [Palestinian] fighters report is that they have built more than 400 km of tunnels. Vehicles and motorcycles can pass through some of them,” Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Baqeri said in a conference in Tehran on Monday.

The militants have also dug tunnels that start in the Gaza Strip, and come out behind the Iron Wall barrier set up around Gaza’s perimeter, the Iranian top commander added.

“If [the Israelis] want to act logically, they have to accept a ceasefire sooner and buy some time through negotiations,” Baqeri suggested, adding that Israel has already “lost” on the battlefield and in the battle for the world’s opinion.

Praising Palestinian militias’ ability to take on the vaunted Israeli military independently over the past three weeks, Baqeri suggested that Israel has attempted to tie the militias’ actions to outside forces in a bid to “cover up” its defeat.

“The Palestinian combatants are prepared for an Israeli ground attack,” the Iranian top commander emphasized, adding that Israel is clearly weary of launching a full-scale ground invasion because it knows doing so could lead to its defeat.

Iranian officials aren’t the only ones who have warned Tel Aviv about the risks of a ground invasion of Gaza. Over the weekend, US media reported that the IDF had reevaluated earlier plans to go in on the advice of senior US officials, including Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.

Retired US Army General Robert Abrams warned on Sunday that Israel could not simultaneously accomplish their purported goal of thrashing Hamas while also protecting Palestinian civilians. “I think it’s going to be what I would consider nearly impossible,” he said in a TV interview, pointing to the upwards of one million civilians “who are in harm’s way and can’t get out of harm’s way.”

Abrams’ assessment echoes one made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who told Belarusian media on Saturday that it would be impossible to destroy Hamas without simultaneously destroying Gaza and most of its civilian population, and called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid to the Strip. “We send signals to the Israelis, we have full contacts with them, our ambassador communicates with them regularly, we send signals about the need to seek a peaceful solution and not to complete the announced scorched earth strategy in Gaza,” Lavrov said.

Tehran has offered moral support to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in their fight against Israel, but denies having anything to do with the surprise October 7 Hamas raids into southern Israel, and has refrained from making moves which could escalate tensions despite efforts by Tel Aviv and Washington to pull the Islamic Republic into the crisis. Instead, Iran has joined Russia, China, Turkiye, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and other countries in calling for an immediate ceasefire and urgent humanitarian aid to Gaza residents.

But Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian warned Saturday that “if the Israelis do not stop the war and continue with the killing and crimes, the opening of new fronts will be unavoidable, and that will put Israel in a new situation that will make it regret its actions.” He went on to blast the US over its role in the crisis, pointing out that “the US is advising others to show self-restraint, but it has sided completely with Israel.”