Prior to this latest over-the-fence attack, Hamas’s (“officially the Islamic Resistance Movement”) main military strategy was tunneling under the fence with Israel and emerging to fight on the unprotected side or tunneling under the border with Egypt and bringing weapons in. (see “Palestinian tunnel warfare in the Gaza Strip” from Wikipedia).
I’m wondering what stops the Israelis from finding all of the tunnels via ground-penetrating radar. Before we decided to open our border, we attempted to find tunnels connecting the U.S. and Mexico (DHS 2009). This 2014 article from The Times of Israel discusses the technology’s limitations:
Ground-penetrating radar, known as GPR, is among the most promising technological responses to the tunnels, Israeli and American experts say. The radar – which can “see” into the ground – has been used from the surface to search for smuggling tunnels under the US-Mexico border. Radar installations are also installed in deep holes in the ground to search for attack tunnels under the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
The experts say the Korean type of of cross-borehole ground-penetrating radar could be installed along the border to create a permanent detection barrier – deep enough to spot any tunnel Palestinians militants could dig. The barrier could be monitored for changes from a remote center, and in combination with other technologies could provide the best method of securing the border.
A limitation of ground-penetrating radar is that even in ideal conditions, it only provides an accurate image from the surface up to a depth of about 15 meters. The known tunnels in Mexico are as much as 27 meters below ground.
In the DMZ between North and South Korea, four tunnels have been found from the north running as deep as 160 meters below ground. The South Korean army – previously with guidance from the US Army Corps of Engineers – has on an ad hoc basis used cross-borehole ground-penetrating radar to look for tunnels as deep as 600 meters, …
In cross-borehole ground-penetrating radar, pairs of narrow holes are drilled deep into the ground and antennae are lowered into them — one for sending and the other for receiving the signals. From the boreholes, the radar can provide an image all the way down to the water table. However, there have been no reports of tunnels being found this way in the DMZ.
Maybe the water table is an issue? The Coastal Aquifer from which Gaza gets most of its water (pumping it out via wells) is only 20-50 meters below the surface and perhaps some of Hamas’s tunnels are deeper?
If Israel (or “the Zionist entity” as Hamas officials refer to the enemy) is on the surface inside Gaza, can they drill underground to place radar gear and come up with a complete subsurface map?
It looks like some USGS folks tried to do this in the mid-1990s to find old mine tunnels:
If the answer to the above is “yes”, then what? Suppose that someone with control of the surface wanted to destroy the tunnels. How can they do it? (I’m assuming that there won’t be any people inside the tunnels at this point. Presumably the Hamas fighters will migrate south and mix seamlessly into the civilian population, live off U.S. and E.U. taxpayers, then come back in 2024 or 2025 with a renewed vengeance.)
There are “bunker buster” bombs designed to destroy stuff underground, but wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper to drill a shaft down into a previously-mapped tunnel and drop a modest-sized explosive into the shaft? If so, will Gaza be transformed for a few months into what looks like an oil-drilling field?
Related (very loosely):
- “Address by President Nelson Mandela at International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, Pretoria” (1997): “… our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”
Are there stories that across the border tunnels are the issue in current war started by Hamas?
I read small story that IDF eliminated Hezbollah infiltrators in the north, which could imply that it was stocking a discovered but not publicized tunnel. Israel should be able easily detect cross-border tunnels since they built a security fence around Gaza which I assume requires drilling holes anyway. Could use seismic equipment to detect underground movements, it can detect me jumping. Think that in this attack Hamas used large scale sea infiltrators and breach security fence with bulldozers while people in Israel celebrated and protested US-style Democracy introduced by Israeli “right wing” politicians, something like US Clintonites. Note that Israelis indeed are not allowed and or do not want to own rifles and train with them, so until second year in IDF Israeli recruits are just children learning how to slam the bolt on their rifles.
perplexed: I don’t think the tunnels have been a big factor in the latest fighting. On the other hand, as long as the tunnels exist, I assume that the Islamic Resistance Movement and Palestinian Islamic Jihad can just regroup, get some more weapons from the Egyptian side, and attack again when the time seems right. Wikipedia says “The underground tunnel network allows Hamas and other militant groups to store and shield weapons, gather and move underground, communicate, train, launch offensive attacks, transport hostages, and retreat without being detected by Israeli or Egyptian authorities.” The Wikipedia article describes at least 100 km of tunnels, 20-30 meters below the surface. It costs about $100,000 and takes three months to build a tunnel says Wikipedia (pre-Biden dollars). Maybe the Hamas guys should be hired by New York City’s MTA (see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html ).
Philip, I thought you were talking about cross-border tunnels. Yes, in Gaza Hamas infrastructure is underground and Gaza is booby-trapped and sniper sector-sited by Hamas/PIJ/etc soldiers who are trying to lure IDF ground forces to fight on Hamas terms. In such environment relying on ground radar is hard as tunnels are probably extensions of building basements.
Ground radar could help finding and bomb tunnels to Egypt.
Offtopic: Israel should stop pretending it is an island off European mainland like UK and start training its children for war and arm its population.
Perplexed…. First of all that’s not “off topic”. Offtopic: Israel should stop pretending it is an island off European mainland like UK and start training its children for war and arm its population. Second doesn’t Israel already do this?
TS. 1. It is off-topic as it has nothing to do with ground penetrating radar use in Gaza.
2. No, Israeli military and firearms training starts in IDF or small percentage of special schools that are treated as part of IDF service at same age of recruitment. And for those Israelis who do not serve in iDF any arms training or armed protection is hardly achievable, if they do not live life of crime that it, there are plenty of fully automatic weapons in underworld and Arab sectors, Swedish Carlo sub-machine gun being a staple .
As a matter of fact any en-mass civilian rifle training is very problematic, during and after so – called “peace” process weapons were confiscated and training facilities diminished. Every single hand-gun for personal use should be licensed with bureaucratic red tape and ammunition is limited. It’s all wrapped into senseless red tape.
This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that many Israelis serve in IDF. That’s why Israel has to call up reserves, they are better trained then new IDF recruits, after 2 – 3 years in IDF and following months or even years of at least bi-weekly per year reserve service.
I think military training should start in early teens, including both fitness, firearms, shooting and new military technologies and organization training.
They can find groundwater on Mars from a satellite. Must be a conspiracy or a climate change regulation.
One problem Gaza does not have is pension liabilities. The median age is 18 and about 65% are 24 or younger. Gaza has plenty of reproductive capacity and ability to dig tunnels.
https://www.indexmundi.com/gaza_strip/demographics_profile.html
If the answer to the above is “yes”, then what? Suppose that someone with control of the surface wanted to destroy the tunnels. How can they do it? They should fill the tunnels with sea water and man eating sharks! Then the nice children of Gaza can sing about baby sharks!
Why not just using directional drilling? Seems like the oil industry has perfected those tools so that one could easily drill a matrix of under Gaza at multiple depth level and know when one breached an open tunnel. Likely they could then deposit an explosive device into the tunnel and seal it. I know almost nothing about directional drilling but given its wide application from oil/gas exploration, and utility (cable, electricity, gas, water, sewer, etc.) it wouldn’t be difficult or expensive.
In Gaza hate of the West, and hate of the Jews/Israelis, is fueled by an incredible growth in population, in a place without resources and where the “prevalent ideology” (for lack of a better description) impedes development. Israel tried to contain it, and we all have seen the horrors of a failure in the containment system. Solving the problem of Hamas’s tunnels is not going to change the nature of Gaza.
No – but it still must be done!
Next up, expect drone tunneling “missiles” that dig their way to a detected tunnel and blow it up.
I saw them in the Matrix movie.
The Economist has an article on the challenges involved. Apparently it requires 9 to 11 tons of “Emulsa” water-gel explosive to seal a single tunnel. You can be certain Hamas has placed hostages in the tunnels, so IDF soldiers cannot simply go in guns blazing. The psychological toll is likely to be horrendous. Likely remote-controlled robots will be used extensively, but it takes weeks to secure a single tunnel, while tying down soldiers at the entrances where they are sitting ducks for mortar attacks.
https://archive.ph/qBoU8 (Paywall-free)
We should stop sending money to Gaza AND Israel. If both were not subsidized then they would all have to compromise to some extent. By sending them money we are just fueling this war into perpetuity.
Re. not “sending money” to Israel.
What is your vision of Israel’s future without ability to defend itself from friendly Arab nations surrounding it ?
By this logic , We should kill all defence companies . Then all wars can be avoided in future!
They won the first, second, third, and fourth Arab-Israeli wars. That’s a pretty good record. So what makes you think they can’t defend themselves?
“Israel’s future”
As much as I hate to state that, Israel has no future in the longer term, for two reasons:
1. Huge numeric disadvantage against hostile nations, which are likely to start receiving modern military hardware from China or Russia thanks to the idiotic American policy of alienating up-and-coming peer-level powers.
2. Nuke non-proliferation is not going to hold forever. At some point Arabs will get some.
@averros, Russia is a peer-level power, LOL. Seems that Russia’s power is no match to Azeri’s power. Wait until Kazakhstan gets involved.
@anonymous:
If you haven’t noticed Russia is currently kicking ass of the largest trained to NATO standards army in Europe supplied by pretty much the entire Collective West. With 1:7 attrition rate, not in Ukraine favor. Without even considering it a real war (SMO is not war, declaring war would have allowed conscription rather than limited mobilization of reserves according to Russian law). RAF chewed through the entire huge stock of Soviet hardware from all over the world, and now has nearly depleted Western materiel reserves. While Russia keeps producing more than it expends.
But you won’t know that if you live inside Western propaganda bubble which seems happy to reprint verbatim “news” from Ukrainian propaganda organs of Ghost of Kiev fame and ignore everything else.
Much touted Western superior tech doesn’t seem to match up to Russian AD, EW, missile tech (heck, modern-day US cannot even field supersonic cruise missiles while Russians actually use hypersonic missiles in combat), and drones (Lancets? what Lancets?) under the real combat conditions. There’s nothing in Western armories even close to Sarmat/Avangard or Poseidon (which rendered American ABM systems rather useless). Or Zircon (which made aircraft carriers obsolete).
But, yeah, not a peer, ROFL.
PS. Those of us who actually know history understand that Russians know how to wage wars at a scale unimaginable to Americans. American participation in WW2 was mostly peripheral skirmishes (about 1/20th of the size of Soviet involvement) and picking up the less broken parts of Europe after two major combatants exhausted each other. Even in the war with Japan it weren’t Americans who killed the most Japanese soldiers, by far.
PPS. Azeri? LOL. Russia has friendly relationships with Azerbaijan. If you refer to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, you probably should learn that Armenian government itself recognizes the region as a part of Azerbaijan. Why would Russia fight for it when Armenia won’t? It was merely maintaining there a smallish group of peacekeepers to keep the local hotheads from starting a bigger war. When SHTF these peacekeepers organized evacuation of N-K Armenians to Armenia proper, losing a few people in the process. When Pashinyan started making noises about joining NATO, Russian support of Armenia pretty much evaporated (it was already rather weak after 2018 “velvet revolution” organized by the usual color revolution suspects and funded by the Armenian diaspora in US).
@averros LOL
Great Russian success of keeping “keeping the local hotheads from starting a bigger war” for sure there was not a large war, or any war.
Russia fights great war with NATO without NATO noticing yet. And begging North Korea for ammunition.
“They won the first, second, third, and fourth Arab-Israeli wars”
Thanks to our support, especially closer in time to nowadays. Otherwise, without our military help, Israel might not have existed today. The Iron Dome is a good example of such support:
“From 2011 to 2021, the United States contributed a total of US$1.6 billion to the Iron Dome defense system, with another US$1 billion approved by the US Congress in 2022”
However, as the latest events showed, it is penetrable given the increased intensity of rocket attacks.
Your suggestion, in part, implies: “let’s stop paying for the ID, and see what happens”. What’s your vision of Israel after all launched 5,000 rockets hit random places inside Israel ?
Ivan: Our funding come with strings attached. There would not be any rocket attacks from Gaza if Israel did not pull out of Gaza, at insistence of its friends, primary US elites. I think that Israeli defense budget should go back up to 10% of its GDP or higher, now it is down to 5%. And population should be rearmed, and air and rocket defenses should be tripled and quadrupled to the level of redundancy. Supplying ammunition from the US using sea shipping will be compromised in the larger conflict. And tank defense systems should be always in upgrade mode, it passed a year since world have seen over the counter drone effectiveness in Ukraine / Russia conflict. Israel won in 1948 while embargoed, In 1967 it relied only on itself and won, in 1973 Israel was already helped by US and missed the attack. Since than every Israel victory followed by peace overtures and subsequent retreat raised stake and lethality of next attack on it. This spiralling process can not continue indefinitely. Next threat will be even more lethal.
Deutchman: US is in contractual agreement with Israel and Egypt. Per US brokered and guaranteed agreement Israel gave up sparsely populated Sinai (including significant natural resources and strategic depth) to Egypt and US committed to helping Israel and Egypt. Economic help was discontinued about 20 years ago, as a matter of fact Israel is now one of significant holders of US Treasuries and thus a debtor to US. Military aid is contractual per Sinai agreement and also beneficial to US. For example, first generation of modern-stile drones in US (and other NATO countries) were Israeli drones. Even if US military industries could easily make up for decoupling from Israel, Israel would search for new markets, build its own competing fighter planes and probably sell staff to China and other players, being alone in the world. This would for sure hurt US a lot.
Do you suggest US returning Sinai to Israel?
debtor = I meant to write that Israel is a historic debtor but for the past one or two decades became an economic creditor of the US
“$14 billion for Israel. They flat-out do not need another dime from Uncle Sam to do whatever they determine is necessary to cope with the barbarians domiciled in the hell-hole known as the Gaza Strip.
After all, Israel’s defense budget of about $25 billion is nearly as large as the entire GDP of Gaza, which may amount to $28 billion according to the CIA’s own World Factbook. Stated differently, what passes for an economy in the shambles of Gaza is less than 5% the size of Israels booming, technologically advanced and robust $550 billion national economy.
And even if you throw in a few hundred million of aid per year from Iran and others that allegedly flows through Qatar to Hamas, there is simply no contest. Israel is an economic and military Goliath relative to the Hamas terrorist apparatus and does not need any virtue signaling from the politicians of the bankrupt state domiciled on the Potomac in order to handle their own security.”
“Moreover, it is not as if Washington is not doing a whole lot already. The current Israel aid package is $3.8 billion per year in mainly military support, which accounts for nearly 16% of its current defense spending. And that needs also be viewed in the context of $318 billion in cumulative aid (2022 $) that Washington provided over 1946 to 2022.”
Deutschman, I am with you that Israel should spend more on its military.
If you look at the breakdown of $14 billion you will see that $9 billion s what is going to Israel. Other $5 billion is going to US entities, including almost of $1 billion on long term ammunition production for Israel in the USA, which is a very long shot that it will actually will make it to Israel. And I am not sure why long term goals made to emergency aid package at all.
Are you OK with rest $106 billion package that Biden proposes under the guise of helping Israel?
Including $9 billion on “humanitarian:” goals, ie helping Hamas concentrating on war with Israel while shoring up its domestic spending, of which significant percentage in reality will flow to Hamas directly.
British and USSR economy too was larger by a margin that Nazi Germany economy, but I do not remember FDR including into British and Soviet land lease humanitarian help to citizens on Nazi Germany.
It is just anther US Democrat money steal.
Ukraine will again be helped with no critical weapon system provided, I am sure.
$3.8 billion seems like a great deal for US military industry as it limits Israeli export ability, provides US with access to battle-proven military technology and helps American companies to sell its ware, for example Raytheon participating in $4billion defense contract of your adopted homeland of Germany with Israel, providing US intercept vehicles to Israeli system and integrating it with NATO and US capabilities. Especially considering that $3.8 billion is a drop in the bucket that goes back to US companies for US hardware, Israel can not even buy fuel for it, and considering how many $ billions gets stolen and re-distributed annually by US “community” “organizers” and printed. I would say one of the most productive US spending.
But I agree with you, from its own point of view, Israel should at least double its military spending and not necessary rely of $3.8 billion. But taken alone, such move would hurt US first and foremost. That’s why I am not advocating this. Also because I do not want Israel moving away from the Western world and get closer to openly tyrannical countries. It has enough senseless red tape already.
Drill the tunnels and then pump in phosphorus. When the tunnel system is largely filled with it, detonate!