Israel is confronting a problem beyond the Hamas rockets screeching overhead -- a threat underfoot.
The Israeli military says
it is trying to demolish a sophisticated network of tunnels that run
through parts of northeast Gaza, under the border and into southern
Israel.
Hamas has already used the tunnels several times in the past few days to attempt assaults on Israeli soil.
The first attack, on July
17, was foiled but prompted Israel to announce a ground incursion into
Gaza with the stated aim of taking out the tunnels.
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Another assault through
tunnels s few days later resulted in clashes that killed more than 10
Hamas fighters and four Israeli soldiers.
The assault near the town
of Sderot appeared to target two communal areas "where farmers are
trying to conduct their daily lives," said Israeli government spokesman
Mark Regev. The Hamas fighters were disguised as Israeli soldiers,
according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The clashes forced area roads to close, residents to shelter in their homes and tied up security forces for hours.
The method of attack, in
which militants spring out unexpectedly from underground, has struck
fear into Israelis living near Gaza.
"Your enemy is about to
blast his way into your dining room from below the floor while you are
feeding your family. Sounds like a B-rated horror movie, right? This
scenario is one real example of a Hamas tunnel discovered just in time
by the IDF leading into a kibbutz communal dining hall," Benay Browne
Katz, a volunteer medic and grandmother who lives in Jaffa, told CNN.
'Lower Gaza'
The tunnel network has
also been used during combat inside Gaza, the Israeli military says,
allowing Hamas fighters to pop up and fire on soldiers or toss grenades
before dropping back out of sight.
Israeli military
officials refer to the underground works as "Lower Gaza" and suggest at
least some of the war is being waged underground.
The tunnels aren't a new
phenomenon. Hamas used one in 2006 to capture the Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit and take him back into Gaza. He was held captive for five years
until a deal was struck for his release in exchange for more than 1,000
Palestinian prisoners.
Memories of his capture
were revived by a foiled attack over the weekend, in which one Hamas
fighter who entered Israel through a tunnel was found to be carrying
tranquilizers and handcuffs, according to the Israeli military.
'A whole industry'
Israel received a
warning of the growing scale and sophistication of the underground
threat last year with the discovery of a tunnel that ran from the Khan
Younis refugee camp in Gaza and emerged near the Israeli kibbutz of Ein
Hashlosha.
Uncovered in October, the tunnel was wired for electricity and communications. It was also high enough for a man to stand, walk or run through.
It was long, about 1.7
kilometers (roughly one mile), and deep, at least 18 meters (59 feet).
Its interior was fully lined with an estimated 500 tons of concrete.
"We're talking about a
whole industry, and not a small group that's organizing it," Maj. Gen
Shlomo Turgeman, commander of the IDF Southern Command, said at the
time.
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Israel responded by
halting supplies of concrete and construction materials into Gaza,
tightening an already restrictive blockade.
Large network
But the current conflict
suggests that tunnel building has continued at a steady clip. The
Israeli military says that during its incursion into Gaza, it has so far
found scores of different access shafts leading to about 30 tunnels.
Some of the entry points were underneath people's houses, officials said, and Israeli military uniforms were stashed inside some of the tunnels.
The IDF said it has
destroyed about half the known tunnels so far with controlled explosions
or heavy earth-moving equipment. The substantial construction of the
tunnels, some of which stretch for kilometers, has made them difficult
to demolish, Israeli military officials said.
"We're taking action
right now to neutralize those tunnels and we'll continue the action as
long as necessary," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last
week.
The Israeli military
says it believes there are "tens" of tunnels still to be found -- and
some of the fiercest fighting it has encountered has been around the
tunnel entrances, suggesting a strong desire by Hamas to hold onto them
and protect them.
Smuggling tunnels
Hamas started off using
tunnels to burrow under different Gaza border -- the one with Egypt. The
aim of those tunnels wasn't to mount attacks, but to ferry goods. The
underground routes into Egypt were a way to circumvent the Israeli
blockade on Gaza.
The Gaza-Egypt tunnels
"are used to bring in food, to bring in gas, livestock, anything else
that the Gazans need. And also, according to Israel, are used to
resupply Hamas. That is how they get their weapons into Gaza within this
blockade," said CNN's Paula Hancocks, who visited some of the tunnels
in 2009.
Despite efforts by both Israel and Egypt to crack down on the smuggling tunnels, they've proved hard to stamp out.
"They've been bombing
these tunnels between Gaza and Egypt for years and still they keep
popping up," Hancocks said. "They're very, very basic, very dirty, but
they are very quick to create."
Israel's current effort
to destroy the tunnels into its own territory is taking a heavy toll --
on Gazan civilians and Israeli soldiers.
The question is whether the incursion will remove the threat for good.
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