The smoke signals were already there. Talk of an intricate and sophisticated web of tunnels being constructed by fighters of the Hamas Islamist movement and the Al-Quds—the armed outfit of the Islamic Jihad was doing the rounds. Well-concealed and camouflaged from prying eyes, drones and probing satellites, there was nothing to indicate under which stretch the tunnels lay.
Last year in April, talking of the tunnel network, Abu Hamza, spokesperson of the Al-Quds brigade, had told the AFP: “We will let the days and the battles to come do the talking about the ability of the resistance to break through this so-called (Israeli) barrier.”
The well-ventilated and lighted tunnels—mostly located at depths of about 20 metres—were apparently “repaired, well-stocked with rockets and connected to a system of drones.”
The Hamas plan to build tunnels began in 1999 and were similar in design to the tunnels which the Viet Cong guerrillas used to telling effect against the Americans in the jungles of south Vietnam.
“Hamas’ tunnel network is in fact a vast underground city with dozens of access points located throughout Gaza. Hamas uses these tunnels as weapons caches, bunkers, command centers and a concealed transportation artery for terrorists and weapons, including rocket launchers,” says a post by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
In 2016, 21 tunnel diggers died as 25 tunnels collapsed in Gaza
But most importantly, they were used as vantage points to infiltrate into Israel from Gaza, get behind unsuspecting IDF posts to mount attacks, make rapid exits and bring back hostages.
The IDF has its own team of underground warfare called the ‘Yahalom’. But whether that will be enough to mount effective offensives on Hamas and Islamic Jihad is something the next phase of battle will reveal. Besides being experts in tunnel warfare, ‘Yahalom’ specialises in “discovering, clearing, and destroying terror tunnels”.
‘Yahalom’ comprises the ‘Yael’ or the unit engineering reconnaissance force, ‘Sayfan’ is trained to handle non-conventional weapons while ‘Samur’ specialises in tunnel warfare.
Building tunnels under densely-populated towns and civilian premises is by no means an easy task. In 2016, 21 tunnel diggers died as 25 tunnels collapsed in Gaza. The dead were all from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and other outfits.
After mounting deadly airstrikes on Hamas targets in the narrow Gaza Strip, on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thundered: “We have only started striking Hamas… What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
Conventional military wisdom would therefore dictate that Israel’s deadly airstrikes in the narrow Gaza Strip and elsewhere is but the foreplay for a massive ground offensive by the land forces that is already being prepared. IDF has already mobilized 300,000 reservists in just 48 hours.
With Hamas’s initial shock and awe tactics tapering off, it is now the time for the real battle to start—a battle that will determine the future of Israel, the Palestinian people amid the interplay of world geopolitical strategies. And the main part of that battle will be fought in these tunnels which are the base, armoury, living quarters and even jails for the Palestinian militia.
The Gaza is a 365 sq km big corridor on the eastern Mediterranean coast that is home to about 23 lakh people with a population density of more than 6,000 people per sq km. A fight for military control and domination in this zone would require war-fighting techniques more attuned to the urban style of warfare.
But what would complicate matter for any invading force is the existence of the vast network of tunnels. As in all styles of guerilla warfare, familiarity with the surroundings is a critical element. On this count, the Palestinian militia outfits would have the distinct advantage and nothing would please them more that being able to lure in the IDF underground.
Blinded by an ongoing rapprochement process with Arab nations which led to complacency, over-confidence due to technological superiority and a relative period of peace, the famed Shin Bet—Israel’s internal security agency—and Mossad—Israel’s external intelligence agency—ignored the smoke signals emanating from just across the border with the narrow Gaza Strip.
That proved very costly on the Saturday morning of October 7 as hundreds of heavily-armed Hamas fighters forayed into Israeli homes and hearths, rock shows, towns and business centres from land, sea and air.
A murderous assault followed amid a hostage taking spree by the Hamas fighters. A conservative estimate put the numbers at about 900 people killed in Israel. A spate of deadly airstrikes by the Israeli fighter jets saw about 680 die in Gaza at last count on Monday. The numbers are still counting while the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) put the number of displaced in Gaza at more than 187,500 residents.
The latest escalation is the fifth one since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from forces allied to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
From AD 132 to 136, Jewish rebels had effectively mounted ‘hit and run’ attacks during the Bar Kokhba revolt against Roman suzerainty. It was a battle in vain. But this time, it is the Israelis who will have to invade the netherworld.
