The Hamas tunnel city beneath Gaza: a hidden frontline for Israel
The Hamas tunnel city beneath Gaza: a hidden frontline for Israel
What lies in wait for Israeli troops, sources say, is a network hundreds of kilometers long and up to 80 meters deep, described by a freed hostage as "a spider's web" and by an expert as the "Viet Cong times 10."
What lies in wait for Israeli ground troops in Gaza, security sources say, is a Hamas tunnel network hundreds of kilometres long and up to 80 metres deep, described by one freed hostage as "a spider's web" and by one expert as the "Viet Cong times 10".
The Palestinian Islamist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders - including attack, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources familiar with the matter said.
The United States believes Israel's special forces will face an unprecedented challenge having to battle Hamas militants while trying to avoid killing hostages held below ground, a U.S. official said.
Unlike in Vietnam, can't we use aerial surveillance to detect these tunnels? If you know where they're going you have a big advantage in sealing them off and it's much more difficult to unseal tunnels from the inside.
IDF can probably find entrances that are in use, but probably can't easily detect how those entrances connect to each other, or what is actually in the tunnels (a weapons cache? Communications bunker? Hostages? Nothing?) Not to mention emergency exits or booby traps. If IDF seals an entrance, how do they know there isn't a back door that nobody uses regularly? How do they know they aren't sealing hostages inside too?
Yes the United States has had flying gpdr since like the 80s iirc so I'm going to bet so does Israel.
Can someone ELI5 why IDF bombs those tunnels and actively try to destroy them when they know that a lot of their hostages are held there.
It just sounds counterintuitive to me
This was, officially at least, cancelled in 2016 (according to Wikipedia)
Oh yes. They should first just knock on the door and say "Excuse me Mr. Hamas, do you have any hostages in there?"
What a stupid-ass question.
Careful the terrorist apologiests will be here any second to tell you how all Israelies should give up their country, tear down the borders,live under Hamas rule and just accept being murdered and burnt alive.
I can't wait to hear about how the terrorist child murders and hostage takers are innocent and Israel needs to chillax.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
JERUSALEM/LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - What lies in wait for Israeli ground troops in Gaza, security sources say, is a Hamas tunnel network hundreds of kilometres long and up to 80 metres deep, described by one freed hostage as "a spider's web" and by one expert as the "Viet Cong times 10".
The Palestinian Islamist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360-sq-km coastal strip and its borders - including attack, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources familiar with the matter said.
Israeli security sources say Israel's heavy aerial bombardments have caused little damage to the tunnel infrastructure with Hamas naval commandos able to launch a seaborne attack targeting coastal communities near Gaza this week.
A small number of narrower, deep, smuggling tunnels were still operating until recently between Egypt and Gaza, according to two security sources and a trader in the Egyptian city of El Arish, but they had slowed to a near-halt since the Israel-Hamas war started.
Shortly afterwards Hamas's military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, captured Gilad Shalit and killed two other Israeli soldiers after burrowing 600 metres to raid the Kerem Shalom base on the Gaza border.
And I believe they acquired a lot of anti-tank weapon systems that are going to try to hit our APCs (armoured personnel carriers), tanks," said Amnon Sofrin, a former brigadier general and former commander of the Combat Intelligence Corps.
The original article contains 1,344 words, the summary contains 238 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
"Avoid"
Star Destroyers have been dispatched for an aerial bombardment of known tunnel entrances and suspected rebel positions. Prior to the ground assault, Stormtroopers will conduct surface-level attacks to draw rebel focus away from the tunnels and into our prepared engagement areas.