Detection, Neutralization, and Destruction: The Limits of Israel’s Strategy against Gaza’s Tunnels

المؤلفون

  • المؤلف

  • Majd Abuamer

الكلمات المفتاحية:

The Gaza Strip، Hamas، Israel، Tunnels، Military Technology

الملخص

Ever since taking control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has heavily invested in underground infrastructure. It has developed a massive tunnel network that it regards as both an economic artery and a geo-strategy that helps withstand any Israeli attack or siege on Gaza. This tunnel network has thus become central to Hamas’s defensive strategy in resisting Israel and its superior military force. In turn, Israel has made this tunnel network a major target in each of its wars on the Gaza Strip since 2014. This study seeks to understand Israel’s military strategy against the tunnels in Gaza and evaluate its effectiveness. It examines the various Israeli initiatives to tackle the tunnels, including the establishment of special military units, and the use of new technologies to detect, destroy, or neutralize them, outlining the limitations of each of these technologies.

المراجع

  1. This was declared in a video message by the al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obaidah on 12 October 2023, five days after the operation. See: Alaraby TV, “Kalimat al-Nāṭiq al-Rasmi Bi-Ism Katāʾib al-Qassām ‘Abū ʿUbayda’ Ḥawl Mujrayāt Maʿrakat #Ṭūfān_al-Aqṣā,” X , 12/10/2023, accessed on 29/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/28ntfm5e
  2. “‘Like fighting ghosts’: The challenge the IDF faces in destroying Hamas’s tunnels,” The Times of Israel , 28/10/2023, accessed on 28/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/skcfy4n6
  3. “Israel to Develop ‘Iron Spade’ to Counter Hamas,” Alarabiya , 17/8/2014, accessed on 20/5/2020, at: https://tinyurl.com/yckks25h
  4. Meaning Israeli settlements close to the Gaza Strip.
  5. Omer Dostri, “The Buildup of Forces for IDF Underground Warfare,” Scholarship , The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, 15 January 2019, p. 5, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/53v8xw5h
  6. “Technological Laboratory for Tunnel Detection and Location,” Israel Defense Forces , 15/4/2018, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/ypk5sukw
  7. “Yahalom Unit,” Israel Defense Forces , 28/12/2021, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/4tr54t6t; “This is the IDF’s Plan to Combat Hamas Terror Tunnels,” Israel Defense Forces , 27/11/2016, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/3k7p9whj
  8. Raphael D. Marcus, “Learning ‘under Fire’: Israel’s Improvised Military Adaptation to Hamas Tunnel Warfare,” Journal of Strategic Studies , vol. 42, no. 3-4 (2019), pp. 358-359.
  9. Yiftah S. Shapir & Gal Perel, “Subterranean Warfare: A New-Old Challenge,” in: Anat Kurz & Shlomo Brom (eds.), The Lessons of Operation Protective Edge (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2014), p. 55.
  10. “Robots and Attack Dogs: What Israel Brings to Tunnel Combat,” The National News , 31/10/2023, accessed on 1/11/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/mrxv4ybj
  11. Dostri, pp. 4-5.
  12. On the combat effectiveness of Palestinian militants’ infiltration operations from Gaza and the evolution of their tactics against the Israeli barrier, see: Yara Nassar, “Khalf Khuṭūṭ al-ʿAduw: al-Fāʿiliyyah al-Qitāliyyah li-ʿAmaliyyāt Tasallul Katāʾib al-Qassām fī Qiṭāʿ Ghazzah,” Strategic Papers , no. 13, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 8 January 2024, accessed on 18/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/2dcas9ej
  13. Dov Lieber, “Israeli Military Reveals Tunnel It Says Hamas Built for Large-Scale Attack,” The Wall Street Journal , 17/12/2023, accessed on 18/12/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/2b7xjskp
  14. “IDF announces deaths of 2 soldiers, raising Gaza ground op toll to 131,” The Times of Israel , 19/12/2023, accessed on 19/12/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/3b4c933d
  15. Abeer Ayyoub, “Israel-Palestine war: Palestinian says soldiers sent him into Hamas tunnel strapped with bombs,” Middle East Eye , 15/12/2023, accessed 19/12/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/2jvcxpav
  16. Eado Hecht, “The Tunnels in Gaza,” Testimony before the UN Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict (February 2015), accessed on 2/1/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/5dye8xjk
  17. See: Raphael S. Cohen et al., From Cast Lead to Protective Edge: Lessons from Israel’s Wars in Gaza (Santa Monica: RAND, 2017), pp. 99-100; Ian Slesinger, “A cartography of the unknowable: Technology, territory and subterranean agencies in Israel’s management of the Gaza tunnels,” Geopolitics , vol. 25, no. 1 (2020), p. 33; Adam Goldman, Helene Cooper & Justin Scheck, “Gaza’s Tunnels Loom Large for Israel’s Ground Forces,” The New York Times , 28/10/2023, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/yek5scf7
  18. See: “‘The Gospel’: how Israel uses AI to select bombing targets in Gaza,” The Guardian , 1/12/2023, accessed on 29/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/ysbzw57h; “Israel Has Struck More Than 11,000 Terror Targets in Gaza,” FDD , 1/11/2023, accessed on 29/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/4tn975yv; Geoff Brumfiel, “Israel is using an AI system to find targets in Gaza. Experts say it’s just the start,” NPR , 14/12/2023, accessed on 29/1/2024, at: http://tinyurl.com/yy69ta65
  19. It should be mentioned that this number is absurd by the standards of military analysis. Any analyst who accepts that Gaza contains this staggering number of targets is either willfully suspending disbelief that the Israeli Air Force has completely lost its professionalism and morality and is blindly bombing civilian homes as part of an extermination plan, or believes that Hamas has operational combat capabilities of a vast magnitude. Israel itself does not have a comparable number of worthwhile military targets. Creating an airstrike target list of this length in an area that can be flown over in less than ten minutes is pure planning folly and a diversion of technology away from its intended purpose. Were the air force to impose its monopoly and the stronger party to dominate the skies, targeting such a vast number of objectives becomes a cover for mass killing that cannot be measured by standards of military effectiveness.
  20. Urooba Jamal & Alex Gatopoulos, “‘Israel Doesn’t Care about Collateral Damage’: Bunker Busters Used in Gaza,” Aljazeera , 9/10/2023, accessed on 6/11/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/yeuawxns
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  23. Cohen et al., p. 101.
  24. Nancy A. Youssef, Warren P. Strobel & Gordon Lubold, “Israel Weighs Plan to Flood Gaza Tunnels With Seawater,” The Wall Street Journal , 4/12/2023, accessed on 5/12/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/5a933p4b; Nancy A. Youssef, Michael R. GordonFollow & Dov Lieber, “Israel Begins Pumping Seawater Into Hamas’s Gaza Tunnels,” The Wall Street Journal , 13/12/2023, accessed on 13/12/2023, at: http://tinyurl.com/68s3heaz
  25. Dominic Nicholls, “‘Sponge bombs’ are Israel’s new secret weapon to block Hamas tunnels,” The Telegraph , 25/10/2023, accessed on 10/12/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/mstbkz98
  26. Netanel Flamer, “‘The Enemy Teaches Us How to Operate’: Palestinian Hamas Use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in its Intelligence Warfare against Israel (1987-2012),” Intelligence and National Security , 2023, pp. 1171-1188.
  27. Rami Ahmed, “Anfāq al-Muqāwama al-Filasṭīniyya wa-Taʾthīrahā ʿalā al-Iḥtilāl al-Isrāʾīlī,” Dirāsāt Siyāsiyya , Egyptian Institute for Studies, 25 February 2020, pp. 30-31, accessed on 1/11/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/2yk3yzyp
  28. “Netanyahu: Gaza op Will Expand until Quiet Guaranteed,” The Times of Israel , 21/7/2014, accessed on 31/10/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/28snkjwd
  29. These operations are as follows: Protective Edge (8 July 8 – 26 August 2014), Magma of the Full Moon (3-6 May 2019), Dawn Cry (12-14 November 2019), Guardian of the Walls (10-21 May 2021), Breaking Dawn (5-7 August 2022), Shield and Arrow (9-13 May 2023), and Iron Swords (7 October 2023 – time of publication). For more information on the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, see: Majd Abuamer & Wadee Alarabeed, “The Israeli War on Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Unity of the Arenas Battle and its Strategic Implications,” Strategic Papers , no. 6, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 19 September 2022, pp. 6-7, accessed on 1/11/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/5n8jw7nb
Cover of العدد 15, Almuntaqa

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منشور

2024-09-01

إحصاءات الاستخدام

46 مشاهدة 99 تنزيل

إصدار

مجلد 7 عدد 015 (2024): العدد 15

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