The question sounds simple but carries enormous consequences: How did Hamas obtain the enormous quantities of cement and other construction materials needed to build its vast underground military infrastructure in Gaza?
The answer is more complicated than simply pointing to Israel’s blockade. Available evidence shows that materials entered Gaza through several channels, including legitimate construction supplies that were subsequently diverted, as well as smuggling routes through Egypt.
The issue has gained renewed attention following the Israeli military’s recent destruction of a Hamas tunnel measuring approximately 1.5 kilometres—nearly a mile—in northern Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces said the tunnel was located in an area where Israeli forces are currently deployed and formed part of the underground infrastructure being cleared from the territory.
Hamas’s tunnel network is not a new phenomenon. The Washington Post reported in November 2023 that Israeli officials estimated the group had constructed approximately 1,300 tunnels stretching about 300 miles beneath Gaza. The network included passageways, weapons storage areas, command centres, shelters and underground facilities.
Another Washington Post report documented the extraordinary scale of individual tunnels. Israeli authorities previously discovered a tunnel running about 1.5 miles into Israel that they estimated had required roughly 800 tons of concrete and cost around $10 million to construct.
So where did the materials come from?
One revealing answer comes from Dennis Ross, the veteran American diplomat who served as a Middle East negotiator under President Bill Clinton and as a special assistant to President Barack Obama.
In an August 8, 2014 opinion article in the Washington Post, Ross acknowledged that he had repeatedly argued with Israeli leaders and security officials that more construction materials—including cement—should be allowed into Gaza for civilian purposes such as housing, schools and basic infrastructure.
According to Ross, Israeli officials warned him that Hamas would misuse those materials.
His own conclusion, in retrospect, was blunt: “They were right.”
Ross also cited Israeli military estimates that approximately 600,000 tons of cement had been used in Hamas’s underground network. He noted that some of the material was smuggled through tunnels from Egypt while some was diverted from construction materials that had been permitted to enter Gaza.
That distinction matters.
It would be inaccurate to claim that Dennis Ross personally “gave Hamas cement” or that every tonne of concrete used in Hamas’s tunnels came through a programme he advocated. His own account does not say that. What it does establish is that he advocated greater access to construction materials because of legitimate civilian needs, while Israeli officials explicitly warned that Hamas could exploit those materials for military purposes.
The broader record demonstrates that Hamas subsequently developed an extensive underground military system.
The Washington Post has described the network as an underground war machine containing weapons factories, fortifications, command-and-control facilities, ammunition stores and other military infrastructure.
The tunnels also became central to Hamas’s military strategy. They provided concealed routes for fighters, weapons and supplies and were used to shelter personnel and hold hostages following the October 7, 2023 attack.
This is the uncomfortable lesson at the centre of the cement controversy: materials intended for civilian reconstruction can become strategically valuable military resources when they are diverted by an armed organisation.
That does not mean Gaza’s civilian population did not need cement, homes, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. It did. Indeed, that humanitarian need was precisely the argument Ross made in 2014.
But the history of Hamas’s tunnel network shows why the movement of dual-use construction materials became such a difficult security issue.
The question today is therefore not simply whether Gaza needed cement. It clearly did.
The harder question is whether enough safeguards existed to ensure that materials entering Gaza for civilian reconstruction actually remained dedicated to civilian purposes—and what responsibility policymakers should bear when security warnings are subsequently proven justified.
That brings the issue back to Dennis Ross.
Ross has continued to participate in public debate over Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including commentary concerning Israeli politics and policy.
The question for Israeli voters is consequently a political one: When a former American Middle East envoy acknowledges that Israeli security officials warned him Hamas could misuse construction materials, and he now admits that “they were right,” how much weight should voters give his advice on Israel’s future security?
History may ultimately judge the cement debate not by the intentions behind allowing construction materials into Gaza, but by what Hamas did with the opportunity.
And that is the uncomfortable story behind the concrete beneath Gaza: a material capable of building homes and schools was also transformed into one of the foundations of Hamas’s underground military infrastructure.
0 Comments