The main goal of the Philadelphi Corridor tunnels for Hamas was not to smuggle weapons but to facilitate firing long-range rockets, IDF sources said Thursday during a visit by The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media outlets to the border with Egypt.
There were three other ways besides the recent smuggling of weapons through the corridor that were likely responsible for the vast majority of Hamas’s massive weapons buildup, the sources said.
Although these points were made in a technical and professional context, they could also have significant implications for the ongoing debate within Israel over how crucial it is for the IDF to hold onto the Philadelphi Corridor or whether it can be temporarily given up as part of a deal for the return of dozens of Israeli hostages.
According to people familiar with the matter, it could take Hamas years to rebuild its cross-border tunnel network, meaning certainly not during the 40-plus days Israel would theoretically leave the area during Phase I of one of the proposed hostage deals.
Regarding the use of the tunnels for long-range rockets, IDF sources said Rafah, in general, and the corridor, in particular, had turned out to have one of Hamas’s largest long-range rocket arsenals that the military found, compared with any other part of Gaza.
Hamas's strategy
Hamas’s strategy was to place the long-range rockets and their launchers next to the border with Egypt to deter Israel from striking them and risking an international incident with Cairo, either by accidentally hitting Egyptian soldiers or merely causing explosions so close to another sovereign nation’s territory, the sources said.
Furthermore, Hamas rocket teams would hide in the large tunnels, which had launchers and inventories of rockets connected to them via their extensive space and storage capabilities, they said.
The Hamas rocket teams would briefly pop out of the tunnels at selected moments, only meters from the Egyptian border fence, and then either fire the rockets or set timers for them to launch, IDF sources said.
After a brief time of being exposed and in an area in which Israel would be very worried about attacking, even if it had much time to calculate a precision strike carefully, the rocket teams would rapidly disappear back into the cross-border tunnels, they said.
The IDF did not invade Rafah during any of the large conflicts since 2005 – 2008-09, 2012, 2014, and 2021 – giving the Hamas rocket crews a sense of absolute immunity.
Furthermore, since Rafah is geographically the farthest from much of Israel, which Hamas would want to hit, long-range rockets made more sense than short-range rockets, which could be fired best from northern Gaza.
The largest number of weapons in Hamas’s arms buildup during the current war is believed to have come from the Rafah crossing, which is controlled by Egypt, IDF sources said. Whether through looking the other way or just being outfoxed by Hamas, smuggling aboveground through the crossing is believed to be the way Hamas got most of its weapons into Gaza, they said.
Secondly, IDF Division 162 has had to destroy about 55 Hamas armament locations in Rafah and northern Gaza, not taking into account Khan Yunis and central Gaza, IDF sources said.
This means Hamas had developed a massive internal industrial-level weapons development project by the time the current war had started – far beyond what had been imagined, they said.
Thirdly, the IDF believes that when Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt from 2012-2013, he allowed an unprecedented amount of weapons to go through the Rafah crossing and through cross-border tunnels smuggling.
Once Hamas had already brought over far more weapons than Israel realized, they could be held in reserve for whenever a larger war might break out, the IDF sources said.
They acknowledged that cross-border weapons smuggling continued until the military took over the corridor in May.
Nevertheless, the percentage of weapons brought in during this period was likely very small, compared with what was brought in or produced by other means, IDF sources said.