(This Oct. 26 story has been corrected to point out that PLO chief on the time was Mahmoud Abbas, not Yasser Arafat, in paragraph 30)
By Jonathan Saul and Stephen Farrell
JERUSALEM/LONDON (Reuters) – What lies in look ahead to Israeli floor troops in Gaza, safety sources say, is a Hamas tunnel community a whole bunch of kilometres lengthy and as much as 80 metres deep, described by one freed hostage as “a spider’s web” and by one skilled because the “Viet Cong times 10”.
The Palestinian Islamist group has totally different sorts of tunnels working beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders – together with assault, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources accustomed to the matter stated.
The United States believes Israel’s particular forces will face an unprecedented problem having to battle Hamas militants whereas attempting to keep away from killing hostages held under floor, a U.S. official stated.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin famous that Iraq’s nine-month-long battle to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State would possibly show to have been simpler than what awaits the Israelis – more likely to be “a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), a lot of booby traps, and just a really grinding activity”.
Even although Israel has invested closely in tunnel detection – together with a sensor-equipped underground barrier it referred to as an “iron wall” – Hamas remains to be thought to have working tunnels to the skin world.
After the final spherical of hostilities in 2021, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, stated: “They started saying they destroyed 100kms of Hamas tunnels. I am telling you, the tunnels we have in the Gaza Strip exceed 500kms. Even if their narrative is true, they only destroyed 20% of the tunnels.”
HOSTAGE WITNESS
There has been no corroboration of the remark by Sinwar, who’s considered hiding underground forward of an anticipated Israeli floor offensive.
But the estimate of a whole bunch of kilometres is extensively accepted by safety analysts, despite the fact that the blockaded coastal strip is simply 40km (25 miles) lengthy.
With Israel in full management of Gaza’s air and sea entry and 59km of its 72km land borders – with Egypt 13km to the south – tunnels present one of many few methods for Hamas to usher in weapons, tools and other people.
While it and different Palestinian teams are secretive about their networks, just lately launched Israeli hostage, 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz, stated: “It looked like a spider’s web, many, many tunnels,” including: “We walked kilometres under the ground.”
Hamas believes that with Israel’s overwhelming aerial and armoured army superiority, tunnels are a solution to minimize a few of these benefits by forcing Israel’s troopers to maneuver underground in cramped areas the Hamas fighters know effectively.
An Israeli army spokesperson stated on Thursday: “I won’t elaborate on the number of kilometres of tunnels but it is a high number, built under schools and residential areas.”
Urging the United Nations Security Council to intervene, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has referred to as for an instantaneous cessation of “aggression” on Gaza and strikes towards “a political solution instead of military and security solutions”.
UNDERGROUND CITY
Israeli safety sources say Israel’s heavy aerial bombardments have triggered little injury to the tunnel infrastructure with Hamas naval commandos in a position to launch a seaborne assault focusing on coastal communities close to Gaza this week.
“Although we have been attacking massively for days and days, the (Hamas) leadership is pretty much intact, as is the ability to command and control, the ability even to try and launch counter attacks,” stated Amir Avivi, a former brigadier common whose senior positions within the Israeli army included deputy commander of the Gaza division, tasked with tackling tunnels.
“There is a whole city all over Gaza underneath with depths of 40-50 metres. There are bunkers and headquarters and storage and of course they are connected to more than a thousand rocket launching positions.”
Other sources estimated depths of as much as 80 metres.
One Western safety supply stated: “They run for miles. They are made of concrete and very well made. Think of the Viet Cong times 10. They have had years and lots of money with which to work with.”
Another safety supply, from one in all Israel’s neighbouring nations, stated Hamas’s tunnels from Egypt stay lively.
“The supply chain is still intact these days. The network involved in facilitating co-ordination are some Egyptian military officers. It is unclear if there is knowledge of this by the Egyptian army,” he stated.
A small variety of narrower, deep, smuggling tunnels have been nonetheless working till just lately between Egypt and Gaza, based on two safety sources and a dealer within the Egyptian city of El Arish, however that they had slowed to a near-halt because the Israel-Hamas battle began.
Egyptian officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. On Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stated whereas inspecting army models in Suez that the military’s position was to safe Egyptian borders.
LONG GAME
Hamas was created in Gaza in 1987 and is assumed to have begun digging tunnels within the mid-1990s, when Israel granted Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization some extent of self-rule in Gaza.
The tunnel community is a key motive why Hamas is stronger in Gaza than within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the place Israel’s settlements, army bases and monitoring gadgets make it more durable to get something in from Jordan.
Tunneling turned simpler in 2005 when Israel pulled its troopers and settlers out of Gaza, and when Hamas gained energy in a 2006 election.
Shortly afterwards Hamas’s army wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, captured Gilad Shalit and killed two different Israeli troopers after burrowing 600 metres to raid the Kerem Shalom base on the Gaza border.
A 12 months later Hamas used tunnels in Gaza to launch a army strike in opposition to the forces of Arafat’s successor as PLO chief, Mahmoud Abbas.
Although the army tunnels remained off-limits to exterior eyes, throughout that period Gaza smugglers would showcase their scarcely hid business tunnels below the Rafah border.
These have been round three ft (one metre) vast and used winch motors to haul items alongside the sandy tunnel flooring in hollowed-out petrol barrels.
One Rafah tunnel operator, Abu Qusay, stated a half-mile tunnel took three to 6 months to dig and will yield income of as much as $100,000 a day. The most worthwhile merchandise was bullets, purchased for $1 every in Egypt and fetching greater than $6 in Gaza. Kalashnikov rifles, he stated, value $800 in Egypt and offered for twice that.
In 2007 the army wing is assumed to have introduced its commander Mohammed Deif into Gaza by means of a tunnel from Egypt. Deif was the mastermind behind Hamas’s lethal Oct. 7 assault into Israel, which killed 1,400 individuals and hostages have been taken.
TUNNEL HUNTING
Professor Joel Roskin, a geomorphologist and geologist with Israel’s Bar-Ilan University stated it was tough to map the tunnel community precisely from the floor or house, including extremely categorised data was important for 3D mapping and imagery visualization.
Among the elite models tasked with going underground is Yahalom, specialist commandos from Israel’s Combat Engineering Corps often known as the “weasels”, who specialize in discovering, clearing and destroying the tunnels.
Earlier this week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Yahalom fighters, telling them: “I rely on you, the people of Israel rely on you.”
Israeli sources stated what awaits them is formidable they usually confronted an enemy that has regrouped and realized from earlier Israeli operations in 2014 and 2021.
“There are going to be a lot of booby traps. They have thermobaric weapons that they didn’t have in 2021, which are more lethal. And I believe they acquired a lot of anti-tank weapon systems that are going to try to hit our APCs (armoured personnel carriers), tanks,” stated Amnon Sofrin, a former brigadier common and former commander of the Combat Intelligence Corps.
Sofrin, who was additionally beforehand head of the intelligence directorate with Israel’s Mossad spy company, stated Hamas would even be attempting to kidnap troopers.
Daphne Richemond-Barak, professor at Israel’s Reichman University and creator of the e book Underground Warfare, stated the conflicts in Syria and Iraq had modified the state of affairs.
“What the IDF (Israeli military) is likely to face inside the tunnels is also all of the experience and all of the knowledge that has been gained by groups like ISIS (Islamic State) and has been … passed on to Hamas.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem and Stephen Farrell in London, extra reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington, Nafisa Eltahir and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
