Well, joining us now here on set is Tamer Karmut.
He's an assistant professor of public policy at the Doha
Institute for Graduate Studies.
Good to have you back in the studio,
Tamer. What do you make of these reports that Israel
is flooding seawater into the tunnels or at least testing
its ability to do so?
Laura, I mean this, this will have a devastating,
like devastating consequences on environmental consequences on the
water drinking water aquifer in the Gaza Strip.
Historically, since the creation of Israel,
Gaza used to have a key river,
it's called the Gaza Valley River,
which went, which crossed through Gaza from the middle.
Then Israel cut the flow this river and and then
deprived Gaza from a main source of drinking water like
you know
and then with the overpopulation Gaza,
it's a very small area 2.3 million.
The water like drinking water has been over exploited.
I mean and it it
it since then it has been a serious problem.
I mean the quality of drinking water and Gaza it's
really bad.
Salinity is a real issue
and if Israel has planned to do this on a
major scale
it's going to have devastating consequences.
I mean long lasting consequences and I really I mean
and this is something new for for us as human
beings,
I mean unprecedented experiment where you flood
an entire piece of land with with with with seawater
and and and and it's very alarming and
if it is going to go ahead with it what
what's it actually going to be able to achieve?
Can you give us an idea of when we say
network of tunnels under Gaza,
what is the actual reality that that's an excellent question
because we hear the Israeli narrative or propaganda when they
say network,
the assumption is that you have a connected network of
tunnels that
covers the entire Gaza Strip.
No one knows because this could be also separate isolated
tunnels.
But this is, this is again,
this is military affairs, no one really knows.
I mean Israel did not prove that the network is
connected,
so they don't have this piece of information.
So again, I think for for me it's more of,
I mean if I mean,
yes, they might do it as
at a large scale, but I think it's the they're
in a trial and error phase where they are threatening
everyone,
especially Palestinians in Gaza, the Hamas fighters that they're going
to use this.
I'm not sure how operationally feasible is it,
but if they go ahead and do it at a
large scale,
it's going to be disastrous for the Palestinians in Gaza.
What does Hamas use the tunnels for?
Because it's it's known in Gaza,
isn't it as the metro.
But but again these are all Israeli terminologies.
The metro, the Gaza metro,
whatever. But, but I mean from the images we have
seen the Israeli images.
I mean we have seen small tunnels.
I mean under under few buildings or areas.
I haven't seen any metro.
No one has seen a metro where you know,
a car. You can drive a car or you know
like a large tunnel.
We haven't seen it yet.
I. So it's it's a taboo.
I mean tunnels like it's a taboo.
I mean, no one knows.
It's a military secret. We hear the Israeli narrative of
it,
but we don't know exactly.
They have to prove it.
They have to prove that there is a network.
I don't know. No one knows,
really, to be honest. That's very interesting indeed.
Tamer Kamuk, thanks very much.
My pleasure.