s Attack Tunnels: Analysis and Initial
Implications
Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs
Ismail Haniyeh, the
Hamas prime minister, delivered a revealing speech on March 23, 2014, in which
he stressed the strategic importance of the Hamas attack tunnels, which, he
argued, have changed the balance of power with Israel, when taken together with
his organization’s military build-up. In the meantime, the IDF’s war against
the tunnels continues. On Monday IDF forces thwarted another terror attack
after two groups of Hamas operatives (numbering about ten) infiltrated from
Gaza to Israel through a tunnel, apparently on their way to carry out a mass
casualty attack at Kibbutz Erez and/or Kibbutz Nir Am.
Since Operation
Protective Edge began, IDF forces have foiled several other attempted attacks
by Hamas near Kibbutz Sufa and Kibbutz Nirim that also made use of attack
tunnels, while uncovering and blowing up dozens of tunnels in Gaza along its
border with Israel. These tunnels penetrate deep into Israeli territory,
sometimes reaching a length of 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles).
Hamas has
accumulated a great deal of experience in using the tunnels for operational
purposes. Since 2000, hundreds of tunnels have been dug along Gaza’s border
with Egypt, providing a lifeline for Hamas’s military buildup. The tunnels have
been a main conduit for Palestinian imports from Egypt on a scale of millions
of dollars annually, and for smuggling military supplies (from ammunition to
missiles) and the construction materials needed to build the network of
attack tunnels in Gaza.
Importation through
the tunnels (it was in Egypt’s political interest that this be referred to as
“smuggling”) was fully controlled by the Hamas government, which levied a tax
on the items and used its huge profits to accelerate its military buildup and
preparation for hostilities with Israel.
During the Second
Intifada, which began in September 2000, Hamas made use of attack tunnels that
were dug opposite IDF positions along the Philadelphi Route. These tunnels
enabled Hamas to lay powerful explosive charges beside the IDF positions in an
effort to destroy them. On June 25, 2006, a joint Hamas/Jaish al-Islam (an
al-Qaeda affiliate) unit infiltrated from Gaza to Israel through a tunnel whose
opening was about a hundred meters from the border in Israeli territory, near
the Kerem Shalom crossing. In that attack, an officer and a soldier were killed
and the soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted.
Hamas built tunnels to smuggle weapons under the Philadelphi Route
from Egypt to the Gaza Strip. In recent years it has also dug attack tunnels
from Gaza into Israel.
Hamas, Hizbullah and even North Korean Tunnels
Based on Hizbullah’s experience in the Second Lebanon War, and with
the assistance and guidance of Iran, Hamas has also made use of the tunnels to
build an underground network of missile launchers. During the Second Lebanon
War, Hizbullah greatly expanded its underground fortifications in Southern
Lebanon with the aid of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) and even
North Korean engineers, who also provided guidance in how to incorporate the
tunnels into Hizbullah’s military doctrine.1
Tunnel warfare
provided armies facing a technologically superior adversary with an effective
means for countering its air superiority. For example, a tunnel is opened
only briefly to launch rockets and then immediately closed to prevent detection
of the launchers’ location by the IDF. The concealment of these launchers in
tunnels, in the heart of the civilian population, makes it very difficult to
detect them in real time and attack them.
The rule of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during 2012-2013 was a golden age for Hamas, the
Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood. During the tenure of President
Mohamed Morsi and his foreign policy adviser Khaled al-Kazaz (a resident of
Canada), missiles and a great deal of ammunition moved through the tunnels to
Gaza, along with the materials needed to construct plants and manufacture
missiles.
In addition to
receiving close to half the budget of the Palestinian Authority, the economic
aid the Hamas government received from international actors, including European
countries, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, has helped it channel
significant resources to its military buildup and the construction of the
attack tunnels.
Also of help to
Hamas were Israeli and international human rights organizations, which
constantly pressured Israel to allow the entry of cement and iron into Gaza for
purposes of civilian construction. In reality, these materials mainly went into
building the attack-tunnel network, instead of houses for the Palestinians.
The attack tunnels
create a new equation in the power balance between Israel and Hamas. They give
Hamas an ability to infiltrate Israel and carry out strategic attacks involving
mass killing, along with an ability to launch missiles from locations concealed
within civilian population centers that serve, in effect, as human shields.
Should Hamas retain in the future 20 tunnels, and dispatch 50 operatives in
each, they could deploy 1,000 men behind Israeli lines. The tunnels would allow
Hamas to wreak havoc if they are left in place.
Hizbullah’s tactics,
learned from Iran, have been replicated in Gaza, particularly the use of the
tunnels to provide “breathing space” in waging the military campaign. The
Hamas-Hizbullah-Iranian aim is to cause as much harm as possible to the
civilian population and weaken Israel by damaging its economy. Like Hizbullah,
Hamas in the current round has tried to strike strategic targets in Israel and
inflict mass casualties, including
Despite the
reconciliation agreement with Fatah and the establishment of the unity
government, one of Hamas’s objectives in the war is to ignite another intifada
on the West Bank aimed ultimately at the toppling of Palestinian Authority rule
and instituting a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian national movement. This
current round of fighting highlights the importance of continued Israeli
security control of key areas of the West Bank to prevent a Hamas takeover of
the Palestinian Authority, and the maintenance of minimal defensible borders
should a Palestinian state be established.
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See more at: http://jcpa.org/hamas-attack-tunnels/#sthash.LIRwAKep.dpuf
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