Subterranean warfare has featured many times in the Arab-Israeli context, and the IDF and Defense Ministry have dealt with various aspects of the phenomenon for many years. On rare occasions Hezbollah chose to operate underground during the years the IDF controlled the security zone in Lebanon. In the Second Lebanon War, a force from the Maglan Special Forces unit conquered a fortified Hezbollah dugout adjacent to the Shaked post; two IDF soldiers and five Hezbollah operatives were killed in the battle. After the war, Hezbollah built an extensive system of concealment and military tunnels within the villages, and possibly tunnels for cross-border penetration as well.

During the second intifada, the Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip made extensive use of tunnels for smuggling weapons from Egypt to the Gaza Strip and for attacking IDF forces in Gush Katif. The IDF launched many raids against the tunnels, and by June 2004 had destroyed over 100. A special piece of heavy equipment, called a trencher, was acquired and used to dig a trench along the Philadelphi axis. Shafts were dug at random places into which explosives were inserted and detonated, in the hope of making the tunnels collapse, and rows of houses close to the Rafah road were demolished. The problem, however, was not solved.

Hamas’ best-known offensive tunnel, whose exit was 100 meters inside Israeli territory near the Kerem Shalom border crossing, was used on June 25, 2006 in an attack by a terrorist squad that killed two IDF soldiers and kidnapped Gilad Schalit. In November 2008, a paratroopers battalion commanded by Yaron Finkelman operating in Operation Double Challenge killed six terrorists and demolished the opening of a tunnel concealed within a building 300 meters from the fence on the Gaza Strip border.

Read the full article at the Jerusalem Post.