Insights into resilient underground spaces: lessons from the Gaza tunnel network

Modern societies depend on critical infrastructure for resilience against attacks and hazardous events, with underground spaces offering defensive advantages. This paper provides a system-level analysis of the Gaza Tunnel Network (GTN), highlighting its resilience under severe attacks. We discuss the engineering evolution of this underground system, which consists of shafts, tunnels, rooms, and large caverns. Key aspects of the GTN’s durability, versatility, redundancy, and recoverability are examined, with implications for contemporary design policies for planning underground spaces for both peacetime and defense functions. The resilience of the GTN demonstrates that underground structures may withstand threats that are conventionally assumed to cause failure. Recognising this may justify reducing design conservatism, thereby enabling the construction of larger public shelters within the same resource constraints.