‘Hamas Hid Behind Civilians’: Entrance to Tunnel Where Murdered Hostages Found Was in Child’s Play Area, IDF Says

The entrance to the tunnel in Gaza where six Israeli hostages were found murdered by Hamas terrorists this past weekend was in a children’s play area, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), underscoring Hamas’s extensive use of civilian infrastructure as protection for its military activity.

“Our troops found drawings, stuffed animals, and the tunnel entrance to where 6 Israeli hostages were held for over 300 days in a terrorist tunnel,” the IDF wrote on X/Twitter on Wednesday.

Video and pictures of the site showed paintings of Disney characters Mickey Mouse and Cinderella on the wall, with a large hole in the ground going down into a tunnel.

The IDF said it was a place where “a child should be safe, not used as human shields for Hamas.”

On Saturday, the Israeli military recovered the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Five of the hostages — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, and Almog Sarusi — were kidnapped from the Nova music festival, and one — Carmel Gat — was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri.

They were reportedly executed shortly before the IDF arrived, and Hamas indicated that it murdered the hostages because Israeli troops were nearby.

The video of the entrance to the tunnel where the hostages were found underscored the fact that, since Oct. 7, there has been extensive documentation showing Hamas systematically using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for its military operations.

Senior Israeli officials told The New York Times in January that the tunnel system built by Hamas was estimated to be up to 450 miles long — winding under the surface of the Gaza Strip. To put the extent of the system in perspective, Gaza as a whole is only 141 square miles.

The Times added: “Hamas has improved its ability to conceal the tunnels, but the senior official said the Israeli military had figured out one of the group’s operating models. The official called it the ‘triangle.’ Whenever the Israeli military finds a school, a hospital or a mosque, soldiers know they can expect to locate an underground tunnel system beneath them, the official said.”

Additionally, videos that Hamas has released of its combat often show its fighters in civilian clothing and even using humanitarian aid to prop up rockets.

Such practices are not a consequence of a lack of equipment but rather a matter of strategy. In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that trying to maximize civilian casualties has been part of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s “brutal calculation” on how to win the war.

Sinwar spoke clearly about how he saw his strategy of putting civilians in danger for the cause of destroying Israel: “These are necessary sacrifices,” he said.