Jerusalem – Israel Focuses On Tunnel Demolition In War With Gaza

Jerusalem – In Israel’s war with Gaza, tunnel threats have taken to the forefront as the main threat over rockets reports The Times of Israel.

With limited detection methods, Israeli soldiers barely escaped an attack on Thursday in the Eshkol region. Now Israeli troops have been sent to find the tunnels and destroy the underground attack methods, with some going as far as 60 feet deep and over a mile long.

Soldiers from the Samur unit, who specialize in finding and demolishing tunnels, use robots to take video that the ground squad can review in order to map the tunnels.

Once reviewed, the army typically sends bomb-detecting dogs into the tunnel. An Oketz soldier was wounded and a bomb-sniffing dog was killed on Thursday in a tunnel by Kibbutz Sufa.

Finding entrances also is not an easy task. Brig. Gen Shimi Daniel says that many entrances are in civilians’ homes, and that by the time soldiers arrive at an entrance, “they’ve already poured fresh concrete over the opening.”

Recently the IDF has discovered approximately 30 offensive tunnels, which are being investigated.

Tunnels can be destroyed by air strikes, but a more effective approach, according to a former commander of the combat engineering corps, is to use drilling equipment to insert hundreds of pounds of explosives into the tunnels.

Officers say the current operation to defuse tunnel threats should take about two weeks.

 Information taken from The Times of Israel

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