Skip to content
Menu
  • Original Short Fiction
Menu

Israel Watch: Israel is Building a New Tunnel-Busting Weapon

Posted on 13 March 2016 by The Tactical Hermit

ISRAEL GAZA BORDER, ISRAEL - AUGUST 04: Israeli soldier seen inside a tunnel built underground by Hamas militants leading from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel, seen on August 4, 2014 near the Israeli Gaza border, Israel. As Operation Protective Edge enters its 28th day, the Israeli mission of demolishing Hamas tunnels comes to a close and ground forces returned from Gaza, while Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and Hamas rocket fire to Israeli continues. Palestinian groups including envoys of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held their first formal meeting in Cairo hoping to secure a durable ceasefire with Israel. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

As Hamas expands its tunnel network in Gaza, Israel, and the United States are collaborating on a clandestine project to thwart the Islamist group’s subterranean advantage.

AN YOUNIS, Gaza — Bassem al-Najar has been homeless since August 2014, when Israeli warplanes demolished his house during the 50-day conflict that killed more than 2,000 Gazans and 72 Israelis. Najar lost his brother in the war, and for the next four months, he lived in a U.N. school with his wife and four children, along with 80 other families. They moved into a prefabricated hut, resembling a tool shed, in December 2014, where they expected to live for just a few months until their home was rebuilt. Today, he is still one of an estimated 100,000 Gazans who remain homeless.

Yet while much of Gaza still lies in ruins, what has taken less time to rebuild is Hamas’s subterranean tunnel network, the very thing Israel entered Gaza to destroy.

During Operation Protective Edge, the name used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the 2014 war, the military uncovered and destroyed 32 cross-border tunnels that snaked for miles beneath Gaza and reached into Israeli territory. Many of them, according to the IDF, began inside homes and mosques in Gaza and ended inside or on the edge of Israeli border towns.

Hamas has made no secret of its efforts to fortify its labyrinth of tunnels, which have emerged as the group’s most powerful weapon — far more effective than its rocket arsenal. In just a handful of tunnel attacks over the course of that summer, Palestinian militants managed to kill 11 Israeli soldiers and capture the bodies of several soldiers in the hope of arranging a future prisoner exchange, in which Israel would trade Palestinian prisoners for the return of soldiers’ bodies.

Read the Remainder at Foreign Policy

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tactical Hermit Substack

Recent Post

  • In Memoriam: T.E. Lawrence
  • Don’t Forget about the Bees
  • Black Crime: To Easy?
  • Unabomber’s Homemade Pistol
  • Firearm News: Glock Discontinues 35 Models
General Franco (2008-2024)

Book of the Month

Fellow Conspirators

Area Ocho

American Partisan

Western Rifle Shooters Association

Brushbeater

Von Steuben Training and Consulting

CSAT

Politically Incorrect Humor and Memes

Freedom is Just Another Word

Prepared Gun Owners

Fix Bayonets

The Firearm Blog

BorderHawk

Cold Fury

Don Shift SHTF

NC Renegades

Big Country Ex-Pat

The Bayou Renaissance Man

Bustednuckles

The Feral Irishman

It Ain’t Holy Water

Evil White Guy

Pacific Paratrooper

Badlands Fieldcraft

Riskmap

Stuck Pig Medical

Swift Silent Deadly

Spotter Up

The Survival Homestead

Bacon Time!

SHTF Preparedness

Sigma 3 Survival School

The Organic Prepper

The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Homestead

Texas Gun Rights

The Gatalog

Taki’s Magazine

Defensive Training Group

The Trail Up Blood Hill

No White Guilt

Europe Renaissance

Vermont Folk Truth

The Occidental Observer

The Dissident Right

Daily Stormer

American Renaissance

Blacksmith Publishing

Arktos Publishing

Antelope Hill Publishing

White People Press

White Rabbit Radio

White Papers Substack

Viking Life Blog (Archived)

Identity Dixie

The Texian Partisan

Southern Vanguard

League of the South

The Unz Review

Dissident Thoughts

The Third Position

Renegade Tribune

COPYRIGHT NOTICE/DISCLAIMER & FAIR USE ACT

All blog postings, including all non-fiction and fictional works are copyrighted and considered the sole property of the Tactical Hermit Blog. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in the short stories and novelettes are entirely fictional and are of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or organizations or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, The information contained in the articles posted to this site are for informational and/or educational purposes only. The Tactical Hermit disclaims any and all liability resulting from the use or misuse of the information contained herein.

The views and opinions expressed on this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the companies that advertise here. 

Much of the information on this blog contains copyrighted material whose use has not always been specifically authorized by the rightful copyright owner. This material is made available in an effort to educate and inform and not for remuneration. Under these guidelines this constitutes "Fair Use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. The publisher of this site DOES NOT own the copyrights of the images on the site. The copyrights lie with the respective owners.

© 2025 | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme