Hamas is squandering funds meant for Gaza civilians and using the money instead for terrorism.
The Hamas terror organization is employing over 1,000 residents of Gaza in the digging of its cross-border tunnels, and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly in wages.
Israel Radio reported Thursday that each digger receives $300-400 a month.
Hamas is also investing vast sums of money in smuggling building materials, raw materials and construction machines from Egypt into the Strip.
Hamas’ elite unit, the Nukhbah, which specializes in tunnel warfare, is training for another eventual attack on Israel, Israel Radio reported.
Several of the unit’s members have been killed in recent months in tunnel collapses.
An Israeli official told Israel Radio that with the money Hamas was investing in its terror infrastructure, large sums of which come from Iran, the Palestinians could have built entire new neighborhoods.
Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels that it has used to penetrate Israel to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians and soldiers and smuggle goods and weapons in and out of Gaza through the Sinai Peninsula.
The IDF destroyed most of the tunnels during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, but Hamas has since been working vigorously to rebuild the network, many times at the expense of innocent Gazans, from whom they steal building materials, which they use for military build-up.
