‘Hundreds of miles’ of tunnels remain in Gaza: Israel consul general

The Gaza strip is still home to “hundreds of miles” of Hamas terror tunnels — and it could take years to eliminate them and vanquish the terrorist organization, Israel’s consul-general revealed to The Post.

“It will take time,” Ofir Akunis said during a sitdown this week. “We can stop [the war] after Hamas is not there — maybe it will take another year or two years.”

“It took six years, six years for the Western world, to defeat Germany,’ Akunis noted.

Despite 15 months of intense bombing before a ceasefire negotiated by President Trump last month, Hamas staged a military parade to mark the temporary cessation of hostilities and has moved to swiftly reassert control over Gaza in recent weeks.

On Saturday the terror group released three more Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails — extending the fragile ceasefire.

Should hostilities resume, the war would “look different” than the last 15 months of fighting, Akunis said, declining to elaborate.

Akunis steadfastly refused to attack President Biden by name but he could not resist a smile when asked to compare the two American leaders’ approaches to the powder-keg region.

“I think that now the there is a new attitude in the American administration,” he said.

Both Israel’s invasion of Rafah and control of the Philadelphi Corridor dividing Gaza and Egypt were vociferously opposed by the Biden administration. This time around he had “no doubt” about total American support for whatever was necessary to root out the terrorist threat, he said.

“I don’t think that anyone will say to the Israeli government not to, let’s say, act in Rafah as an example or about the Philadelphi Corridor.”

Many Democrats and Arab nations in the region continue to hold out hope for a two-state solution, President Trump has largely dashed that hope with a new proposal that would allow the United States to take over Gaza and the Palestinian population there to be relocated.

Akunis called it “the first new idea” in the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot agreement — a secret 1916 treaty between the United Kingdom and France which divided the Middle East between them after World War I.

“All of the international community must be open to new ideas,” he added, making clear a two-state solution is no longer viable.

“This is our land,” he said — adding that the West Bank, which Israel calls Judea and Samaria, was part of Israel. Conservative members of Israel’s governing coalition have long vowed to annex the territory which was once earmarked to be part of a Palestinian state.

“Gaza was a Palestinian state,” Akunis thundered, “Do you think that the Israelis should accept the idea of the same terror state in Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip again? The answer is no.”

Though population transfers were often employed to resolve 20th-century conflicts — like between India and Pakistan in 1947, and Greece and Turkey in 1923 — critics have insisted moving Palestinians would be “ethnic cleansing,” something Akunis dismissed out of hand.

“When we asked the Jews to leave the Gaza Strip 20 years ago, what was that?” Akunis said. “It’s not a matter of Jews or Muslims. This is part of a solution.”

Akunis also had sharp words for Qatar — a longtime backer of Hamas, who harbors their leaders and whose Al-Jazeera news network regularly pumps the region with radical Islamic propaganda.

“Qatar has been playing both sides for many years. On one hand, it supports and funds Hamas and its allies in Gaza and around the world, while on the other hand, it hosts negotiations. This double game must end,” the consul said.

“Instead of building tunnels underground in Gaza, it should be building towers and new homes above ground in the Gaza Strip. Also, the support for the violent protests of Hamas supporters on American campuses must be stopped.”