Chilling Footage: Inside Hamas’s Sprawling 600km ‘City Of Death’ Tunnels Built With European Taxpayers’ Cash

Grainy, recovered video shows terrorists welding, wiring, and fortifying a vast subterranean network under Gaza, while Western donors looked the other way.

The camera jolts through near-total darkness, the only light a harsh work lamp swinging from the ceiling. A bearded man in a black T-shirt braces a metal bar against a concrete wall. Another figure crouches, welding sparks flying. Bare feet and jeans appear further along the passage as more men haul equipment through the cramped space. This is not some improvised bunker. It is industrial-scale construction – recovered Hamas footage seized by IDF intelligence and now circulating online, of the terror group’s infamous “Gaza Metro.”⁠Garaanews

Later frames show arched tunnels lined with cables and pipes, a heavy blast door being forced open, and men pushing what appears to be a large cylindrical tank or generator along the dirt floor. The corridors stretch into the distance under makeshift lighting. Then the video cuts to daylight: Israeli soldiers standing around a freshly exposed entrance in the sand, the tunnel mouth gaping open after being dug out from above.

600 kilometres of tunnels in a strip just 41 km long

Israeli security assessments cited in recent reporting put the total length of Hamas’s tunnel network at between 560 and 725 kilometres – with around 5,700 separate shafts, far higher than pre-war estimates of roughly 400 km. That is longer than the London Underground, packed into a coastal enclave smaller than many British cities. Some sections run 25 metres or more underground and contain dozens of rooms used for command, weapons storage, living quarters and, in multiple documented cases, holding hostages.⁠Timesofisrael

Hamas has never denied the scale. Its late leader Yahya Sinwar previously boasted of hundreds of kilometres of tunnels. The recovered footage matches the picture painted by Israeli forces who have spent years mapping and destroying sections of the network: reinforced concrete, metal bracing, electrical systems, ventilation and blast doors designed to slow any pursuing troops.

‘Every metre paid for by European taxpayers’

The X post sharing the video, from the account IsraelVive1948, argues that much of this infrastructure was built with money and materials originally intended as humanitarian aid from Nordic countries, France, Britain and Spain. The claim is not new. Israeli forces have repeatedly found European aid items and cash inside tunnels. In one high-profile case, IDF spokesman Effie Defrin stood inside a facility under the European Hospital in Khan Younis and displayed piles of cash, stating that European funds had ended up funding terror infrastructure rather than medical care.⁠Israelnationalnews

German broadcaster ARD previously investigated how dual-use materials – including pipes and concrete components intended for civilian water and sewage projects funded by German development money – appeared in tunnel construction. Italian prosecutors have arrested individuals accused of diverting more than 70 per cent of “humanitarian” donations raised in Europe directly into Hamas networks. French and other European officials have repeatedly raised concerns about aid diversion and Hamas influence over NGOs operating in Gaza.⁠Israelnationalnews

Critics argue that years of aid flowed with insufficient controls, allowing Hamas to tax supplies, skim cash and redirect cement, rebar and generators into its military project. The result, according to the post and similar analyses, is that ordinary taxpayers in Europe effectively subsidised the construction of a fortified underground city used to launch the October 7, 2023 massacre, hide fighters, store weapons and hold hostages.

No self-criticism

The video ends with Israeli troops methodically exposing another shaft. Israeli commanders have said destroying the remaining network will take years even in areas under their control, and large sections under Gaza City and other zones remain largely intact. For the account sharing the footage, the absence of any major public reckoning from European donor governments is the final indictment: “They looked the other way as if nothing had happened. They are also responsible for 7/10.”

Whether or not every metre was directly funded by Western aid, the scale of the network, the sophistication visible in the recovered footage, and the documented cases of diverted materials and money have left many asking the same question the post poses: how much of the “humanitarian” effort ended up building the very infrastructure that enabled the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?