by Yoav Limor
The ongoing fighting in
Gaza Strip has slowly exposed the daunting tunnel infrastructure Hamas
has dug between Gaza and Israel. This is a strategic threat, which has
grown undisturbed over the past few years, and may still exact a heavy
toll in the coming days.
Monday's attack, during
which four Israeli soldiers were killed, including the commander of the
Gefen Battalion, was the second tunnel attack in two days to catch
Israel by surprise.
The attack took place
despite the intelligence provided by the Shin Bet security agency,
warning of a potential infiltration attempt, and while the information
led to heightened alert and the deployments of additional forces in the
area, the absence of intelligence indicating as to the exact location of
the tunnel's entrance afforded the terrorists the element of surprise.
Just like in the
previous tunnel attack near Kibbutz Reim, during which an officer and a
soldier were killed, the terrorists once again disguised themselves as
Israeli soldiers, and again opted not to storm the nearby Israeli
community -- Kibbutz Nir Am -- but rather waited for a military target.
This may indicate that
Hamas believes that attacking military forces would be perceived by
international public opinion as "legitimate," while targeting civilians
would undermined their claims of an Israeli "massacre" in Gaza Strip.
Defense officials
hedged that the next few days will see Hamas attempt to launch
additional terror attacks via its tunnel infrastructure. The Israel
Defense Forces' intensive operations in Gaza, which has so far uncovered
dozens of tunnels and shafts -- some leading well into Israel's
territory -- had prompted Hamas to make use of as many tunnels as
possible before they are discovered and destroyed.
Ahead of the ground
incursion launched as part of Operation Protective Edge, the IDF
estimated that there were 10 to 12 major terror tunnels running under
the Gaza Strip-Israel border. The operation is now geared toward
completing the mission at hand -- discovering all of Hamas' terror
tunnels and eliminating them before a cease-fire is achieved.
The scope of Hamas'
underground enterprise was partially known to Israel, although these
tunnels' actual paths were unknown. Various specialists, armed with
sophisticated equipment, were sent to the southern border and tasked
with finding theses tunnels, and the Defense Ministry has invested
millions of shekels is developing technological solutions, which have
yet to prove effective. The five tunnels discovered earlier this year,
it seems, were just the tip of the iceberg.
Understanding the
tunnel threat, which has prompted the IDF to form a special
intelligence-operational taskforce, on the one hand; and the routine
prevalent in the Gaza vicinity communities despite having only a
partially-effective solution to this threat on the other hand, are very
disturbing: Israel has essentially allowed thousands of civilians living
near the border to go about their lives knowing there was a bomb
ticking underneath their feet.
In that respect, Hamas
actually did Israel a huge favor when it rejected the cease-fire
agreement presented by Egypt last week, as allowing this threat to grow
further would have given Hamas a dangerous advantage in the future.
Even now, whatever
remedy applied would be a partial one. Hamas will try to reconstitute
its tunnel infrastructure, and other terror groups -- global jihadi
groups in Sinai and the Golan and Hezbollah on the northern border --
may also decide to dig their way to deadly terror attacks.
The solution to this
threat must be decisive. Israel must invest whatever resources necessary
to devise a technological solution that would enable it to pinpoint
tunnels' locations, and it must also make it unequivocally clear to
Hamas' leadership that pursuing the tunnel enterprise in the future
would constitute a fundamental violation of the cease-fire agreement
that will eventually bring Operation Protective Edge to an end, a
violation that would prompt the IDF to immediately eliminate the threat
in Gaza Strip.
Yoav Limor
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=9251
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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