As Israel warns of an forthcoming ground attack in Gaza, one problem that awaits a potential ground invasion comes to a common underground tunnel machine designed to hide and canopy Hamas militants and execute wonder assaults, professionals say.
Hamas has up to now claimed to have constructed 500 kilometers — greater than 300 miles — of tunnels under Gaza. The tunnel machine is so intensive and well known it is referred to through some — together with the Israel Defense Forces — as the “metro.”
A fighter from Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the army wing of Hamas in the Maghazi camp, stands in entrance of a tunnel in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2023.
Yousef Masoud/SOPA Images by the use of Getty Images
Israel has develop into adept at detecting so-called terror tunnels that experience crossed its border — despite the fact that the intensive tunnel machine in Gaza “will present serious challenges for the Israel Defense Forces,” Bradley Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, advised ABC News.
“The tunnels permit some Hamas fighters to survive bombardment, move around Gaza under cover and concealment, resupply its forces, hide hostages and conduct surprise attacks,” Bowman mentioned.
“Imagine going into an environment and then you’re progressing across the field or into the outskirts of the city, then all of a sudden, some enemy forces pop up behind you and there were none there before,” he mentioned. “That’s kind of a nightmare for an assaulting force.”
Most of the tunnels are bolstered with concrete and a few are relatively deep, permitting them to give protection to Hamas militants towards airstrikes, Bowman mentioned. In 2020, Israel discovered one tunnel that went as deep as 230 ft under the floor, in keeping with the Modern War Institute at West Point.
The tunnel machine is stressed out for electrical energy and verbal exchange and the pathways are extensive sufficient to suit two other people side-by-side, in addition to transfer apparatus, ammunition and forces thru, Bowman mentioned. The moderate tunnel is ready 6.5-feet top and a little greater than a foot extensive, in keeping with a 2016 article in the magazine Geopolitics.
A tunnel that Israel says used to be dug through the Islamic Jihad staff main from the Gaza Strip into Israel, close to southern Israeli kibbutz of Kissufim, Jan. 18, 2018.
Jack Guez/AFP by the use of Getty Images
The tunnels will likely be a key a part of Hamas’ “guerrilla warfare strategy,” in keeping with John Spencer, the chair of city conflict research at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
“Its fighters will form small hunter-killer teams that move underground, pop up, strike, and pop quickly back into a tunnel,” Spencer wrote in a piece printed Tuesday.
Hamas additionally makes use of the tunnels to cover and transfer rockets and rig “tunnel bombs under main roads and buildings that the IDF might be lured into,” Spencer wrote.
The IDF has said the demanding situations posed through the tunnel machine.
“It is not an easy endeavor because Hamas has embedded itself inside and underneath the Gaza Strip,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus advised ABC News in the wake of Hamas’ assault.
Conricus mentioned the tunnels strategically run under civilian infrastructure all through the Gaza Strip.
“That is how Hamas has been able to stop our weapons and hide countless rockets in all of these clashes that we’ve had,” he mentioned. “That is where they’re hiding now as we’re bombing, that is where their weapons are, and that is what they rely on, that’s the military infrastructure that they rely on in order to keep on fighting.”
The IDF has a number of devices specializing in fighting the tunnels, together with the Yahalom — “one of the largest units in the world that trains, mans, equips, experiments, and develops new ways to deal with underground warfare,” in keeping with Spencer. In the wake of Hamas’ wonder Oct. 7 assault, the IDF has claimed to have struck goals belonging to Hamas, together with “a number of underground tunnels.”
Rockets are introduced from the Gaza Strip against central Israel, as noticed from Ashkelon in southern Israel Oct. 17, 2023.
Amir Cohen/Reuters
Israel could have technical benefits in a ground incursion, together with drones, despite the fact that that merit will likely be diminished to some extent because it enters enemy territory, Bowman mentioned.
“Once you’re talking about block-to-block, building-to-building, room-to-room, in some cases, hand-to-hand fighting, it really gets pretty brutal pretty fast,” Bowman mentioned.
Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of protection for the Middle East and an ABC News contributor, mentioned that for Israel to “clear buildings, basements and the extensive network of tunnels, they will have to dismount their infantry and essentially fight soldier-on-soldier and block-by-block.”
Hamas — which has “home-court advantage” — has additionally most likely ready for a major Israeli ground incursion “long before Oct. 7,” Bowman mentioned.
“That’s going to make any Israeli ground incursion more difficult because Hamas is probably prepared for this scenario,” he mentioned.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Becky Perlow and Matt Gutman contributed to this document.
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