by Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
"We have to suppose as a working assumption that there are tunnels. These have to be looked for and prepared for," says Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, commander on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts • Israel hopes to develop tunnel-hunting technology within two years.
Hezbollah fighters
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Photo credit: Reuters  |
Israel believes Shiite terrorist group
Hezbollah has probably dug tunnels into the country from Lebanon in
preparation for any future war, although it has no conclusive evidence,
an Israeli general said on Wednesday.
Israel's vulnerability to tunnels was laid
bare during Operation Protective Edge in July and August. What began as
shelling exchanges with Hamas escalated into a ground offensive after
Palestinian terrorists used dozens of secret passages dug from the Gaza
Strip into Israel to launch surprise attacks.
Residents of northern Israel, who were
battered by Hezbollah rockets during the month-long Second Lebanon War
in 2006, have at times reported underground noises suggesting that
Hezbollah terrorists were burrowing under the border in a new tactic.
The Israeli military says searches it has carried out have turned up
nothing.
"We have no positive information meaning that
there are tunnels. The situation is not similar to what there was around
the Gaza Strip," Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, commander of the Israeli forces
on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts, told Army Radio.
"That said, this idea of going below ground is
not foreign to Lebanon and is not foreign to Hezbollah, and so we have
to suppose as a working assumption that there are tunnels. These have to
be looked for and prepared for."
Hezbollah does not comment on its military
capabilities. Spurred by the Gaza experience, the Israelis say they hope
to develop effective tunnel-hunting technologies within two years.
Golan said Hezbollah, which is fighting on the
side of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war in Syria,
appeared unlikely to seek a renewed conflict with Israel.
Were that to happen, he said, Israel would hit
Lebanese targets hard. But it would also suffer from a Hezbollah rocket
arsenal believed to be 10 times more potent than that of Hamas.
There have been occasional attacks along the
border in recent weeks, including a roadside bomb planted by Hezbollah
that wounded two Israeli soldiers. Israel responded by firing artillery
shells at a Hezbollah position in southern Lebanon.
"We will not be able to provide the umbrella
that was provided in the south by Iron Dome," Golan said, referring to
the anti-rocket system which Israeli and U.S. officials say scored a 90
percent shoot-down rate against rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.
"We and Hezbollah are conducting a kind of
mutual-deterrence balance," he said. He cautioned that isolated
flare-ups on the border could still boil over into war.
"There is no absolute deterrence. Each side has its pain
threshold, its restraint threshold, which when passed prompt it to take
action," he said.
Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=21085
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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