The goal is to block the flow of weapons and militants from Gaza to Sinai, where the rebellion in Egypt was taking place at that time. The Egyptian military had even pumped gas into the tunnels before switching to wastewater. Egypt's actions ultimately succeeded in destroying around two dozen Hamas tunnels.

A few years later, Egypt started flooding the tunnels using water pumped from the Mediterranean Sea. The pumping of seawater aimed to put an end to the weapon smuggling and militant activities to the Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi claimed that the flooding of the tunnels was done for security reasons. The pumping even received approval from the Palestinian Authority, which used to govern Gaza before Hamas took over.

In 2016, Egypt once again launched a campaign to flood Hamas tunnels with seawater. The Israeli Minister at the time, Yuval Steinitz, stated that the flood was partly at Israel's request. He described it as a good solution to deal with the Hamas tunnel network.