Battered but not beaten, Hamas will not stop building tunnels

GAZA CITY // The high Israeli-soldier death toll in the latest Gaza incursion reflects the huge advance in the sophistication and effectiveness of Hamas’s tunnel network, analysts say, and explains why Israel cited the destruction of the underground system as the main objective of its latest assault on the Palestinian territory.

Since the last major outbreak of fighting between Hamas and Israel two years ago, the Islamist group has invested heavily in constructing an underground tunnel network that has become a central plank of its military strategy, along with expanding the reach of its crude rockets and better training for its front line fighters.

In a speech in March, former Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya called the tunnels “ a new strategy in confronting the occupation”.

This updated strategy has given Hamas some tactical successes against Israeli ground forces that have invaded Gaza as well as against IDF units just inside the Israeli border.

Hamas fighters managed to carry out at least six raids into Israeli territory via its tunnels in the past weeks. In one, Hamas militants in Israeli military uniforms killed two Israeli soldiers. In a separate attack, fighters emerged from tunnels and managed to kill four Israeli troops in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack on their jeep. Thirty-two Israeli troops have been killed since Israel launched it latest offensive on Gaza on July 8 — more than in the past two Gaza wars, in 2012 and 2008-2009, combined. Most of the Hamas fighters who staged the tunnel raids into Israel appear to have been killed.

“These tunnels did not exist during the 2008-2009 war. Hizbollah’s experience with tunnels and fortified bunkers was successful, and that success is being replicated by Hamas now,” said Mustafa Sawaf, a political analyst who is close to the Islamist group, referring to the Hizbollah Islamist movement in Lebanon.

“The tunnel networks provide Hamas with stealth and surprise, something that it has used to its advantage against the Israeli invading forces,” said Mr Mustafa, who was formerly chief editor of the Hamas-affiliated Filistin newspaper. “Hamas is fighting a well-thought-out guerrilla campaign, and it’s surprised Israel.”

“Despite a huge imbalance of military power between the occupation [Israel] and the resistance, the tunnels have proved a creative and lethal way to fight, avoid bombings and store weapons,” said Dr Adnan Abu Aamer, political science professor at Gaza’s Al Ummah University. “It’s been demonstrated in this war that the tunnels have given [Hamas militants] an edge in carrying out attacks.”

“Hamas expected that these tunnels would be bombed, so they built them deep and they built them solidly. They’re reinforced concrete. They have multiple openings so that helps confuse the Israelis who are monitoring the area by drone, plane and satellite. It’s a rather effective tool.”

The Israeli military has said the tunnels they have discovered so far have been far more sophisticated and extensive than they expected.

“The tunnels now are a new generation of tunnels that are much more difficult to detect and neutralise,” said Haim Malka, the deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

Hamas began digging tunnels in Gaza since the mid-1990s, reportedly with help from Hizbollah, which had become adept at building tunnels to avoid Israeli bombs.

The first tunnels were used to smuggle weapons and fighters under the border with Egypt, and were expanded in scale and number to bring in consumer goods and construction materials needed by the Gaza’s beleaguered economy after Israel imposed a blockade of the territory following Hamas’s seizure of power in 2007 and Egypt allowed only intermittent access to the outside world through the Rafah border crossing.

Beginning in 2006, according to observers, Hamas began digging tunnels into Israeli territory to be able to carry out surprise attacks on Israeli forces, raid Jewish settlements and take military or civilian prisoners. While these were Hamas’ desired objectives, they’ve never been fully successful.

The biggest Hamas success in terms of its “offensive tunnels” was the capture of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in 2006. A Hamas unit used a tunnel dug near an Israeli checkpoint to snatch Mr Shalit after killing two of his fellow soldiers. He was held prisoner until 2011, when he was freed in exchange for the release of more 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas, however, has been unable to achieve another tunnel success on that scale. “It’s very difficult for Hamas to replicate the tactical surprise [of capturing Shalit],” said Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “Hamas is trying to make a great deal out of very little, which is a mark of how completely one-sided this conflict is.”

But since 2012 the group has expanded its tunnels for attacks and also to “allow its leadership to travel underground in a more secure way” and the network now “includes a command and control structure”, Mr Malka said.

The new tunnels are far deeper and longer — up to 30 metres deep and three kilometres long, according to Israeli officials — and can feature air conditioning, electric power, concrete reinforcement and enough room for a person to walk standing upright.

A major tunnel Israeli forces discovered last year began inside a house in Gaza and opened near a kibbutz. It was estimated to have required about 800 tonnes of concrete to construct.

“These are major engineering works requiring a lot of effort and a lot of resources,” said Jeffrey White, a former Defence Intelligence Agency official now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The tunnel network, which extends throughout the territory, also has fortified bunkers that the group uses to hide from after firing rockets, to store storing weapons and ambush Israeli troops. Hizbollah uses similar structures in Lebanon, analysts in Gaza said.

The bunkers “have decoys, multiple entrances and camouflage, so it confuses the invading occupation forces”, said Mr Mustafa.

According to Israeli officials, Hamas begins by digging inside civilian structures such as mosques or apartment buildings, using non-electric tools. Along with their depth, this makes the tunnels difficult to detect, even with Israel’s round-the-clock aerial surveillance of the Gaza Strip.

These construction methods “can’t be observed by normal intelligence collection [because] they significantly reduce the signatures of digging,” Mr White said.

The US Army Corps of Engineers and Egyptian officials have worked with Israel over the past decade to figure out how to destroy the smuggling tunnels, but those techniques may not be effective on the other tunnel networks.

Israeli military officials said this week that they had destroyed 16 tunnels and 45 entrances since the incursion into Gaza began in July, with the purported objective to destroy the tunnels.

But the officials have admitted that the tunnels are so complex and so many have been built, that they do not expect to neutralise all or even most of them.

The threat of the tunnels also play a secondary tactical role for Hamas, by drawing Israeli ground forces into Gaza, which exposes them to a relatively more even battlefield. “Hamas gets more opportunities to kill Israeli soldiers or capture them,” Mr Sayigh said. Forcing a ground offensive on reluctant Israeli war planners also “makes it politically and diplomatically harder to maintain the operation” because of large Palestinian casualties and significant number of Israeli military deaths.

Even as its tunnels are destroyed and Israel becomes more proficient at locating and destroying them, Hamas is expected to keep building more.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae