Tunnel Vision – Nightmare or Solution

 

“By using the tunnels, the enemy can surround and attack us from behind.”

Col. Amir Olo, the former commander of the elite Israeli engineering unit in charge of dismantling tunnels.

In Vietnam, knowing that the Annamese (the Vietnamese of centuries ago) had deep military tunnels deep underground even in the 15th century and were constantly building more, the US forces in the 1960s and early 1970s believed they had an answer for the hit-run-and-disappear underground tactics of the local insurgency that had thrashed the French during the latter’s occupation of “Indochina.” Helicopters. Air power that could intercept retreating anti-government forces before they escaped into those tunnels. But there was a tiny catch: the tunnels were so ubiquitous that fleeing communist fighters could get to a tunnel way before any helicopter could intercept them.

Cadres of civilians lived underground. Military command posts, barracks and munitions stashes were kept mostly underground. The most sophisticated military on earth, with the massive bombing power of American B-52s, fighters able to drop napalm on a dime and helicopters and torpedo boats that could deliver amazing military force “anywhere” simply lost the war. South Vietnam’s capital (Saigon) fell in a battle with North Vietnamese forces that endured from March 4 to April 30, 1975. It was the last major event of the Vietnam War. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 had allowed the United States a face-saving way to extricate its troops from the Vietnam War.

Now, Israeli forces are facing a tiny “country.” The Gaza Strip has almost exactly the same land area as Las Vegas but has more than three times the population. Its largest city, Gaza City, is more tightly packed than New York City, with more than 650,000 people living within its 18 square miles. The entire “country” has a population of 2.1 million, with roughly half under 18. None of that younger demographic has ever had an opportunity to vote, and Hamas has played roughshod over their people, stirring up violence and hatred, while using the general population as sacrificial pawns, expendable in furtherance of Iran-backed political and military ambitions.

Israel faces another “tiny catch.” There are hundreds of miles of tunnels under Gaza of varying levels of sophistication. Tunnels between Egypt and Gaza are the likely entry point for the munitions, rockets and missiles supplied by Iran to Hamas. Tunnels under the rest of Gaza are the stomping grounds for much of Hamas’ military, a likely depot where many of the hostages taken from Israel are stashed… until they become more useful above ground as human shields. Regardless of the vastly more superior Israeli military (the IDF), urban warfare with a vast tunnel network gives a distinct advantage to Hamas fighters. They have food, power generators, weapons and medical supplies in those tunnels, mostly available only to their soldiers and leaders… and could not care less what happens to the ordinary civilians living above ground.

Decimated buildings, especially school and hospitals that have succumbed to Israeli artillery and missile strikes, with lots of dead Gazan bodies, are fodder to generate global sympathies for Gaza over the zealous IDF counterstrike against Hamas brutal terrorism that began the conflict on October 7th. Hamas seems to be smiling as the IDF is following Hama’s expectations. But what exactly does Israel face if it truly wishes to invade every corner of Gaza to capture or kill all the Hamas leaders and fighters as Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged? The general invasion of Gaza by IDF forces has begun.

But even local Israeli support for the war is complicated. Netanyahu’s intelligence failure and strategic misdirection may finally have caught up to him, as Rory Jones, writing for the October 30th Wall Street Journal points out: “Over 35 years in politics, he has cultivated an image as a security hawk tough on Palestinian violence and ready to face down the threat of a nuclear Iran. That image shattered Oct. 7 when more than a thousand Hamas militants entered Israel in what many Israelis are calling the worst security and intelligence failure in its 75-year history.

“Now he faces a maddening balancing act that requires him to explain the country’s security failures; mount a war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip; seek to return hostages held by the Islamist group; and keep his coalition together amid growing criticism for the Oct. 7 attacks. Even if Israel wins the war, it may not save his political career.

“Unlike many wartime leaders, Netanyahu is struggling to rally the public to his side. Israelis have blamed him in eulogies for the dead; his ministers have been shouted out of hospitals and pictures have been published of red paint smeared on the headquarters of his Likud party to look like blood.” Can Netanyahu recapture any past glory with a quick and decisive victory over Hamas? Is such a quick victory even possible? As David Leonhardt and Lauren Jackson, writing for The Morning (New York Times, October 30th), point out, those tunnels are deadly: “

“Tunnels have existed under Gaza for years. But after Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza nearly two decades ago, Hamas vastly expanded the underground network. Hamas has a long history of terrorist violence — both the U.S. and the European Union consider it a terrorist group — and the tunnels allow its members to hide from Israeli air attacks.

“Israel created further incentive for tunnel construction by tightening the blockade of Gaza after 2007. The main rationale for the blockade was to keep out weapons and related material, but Israel’s definition is so broad that the blockade also restricted the flow of basic items. In response, Gazans have used the tunnels — which extend south into Egypt — to smuggle in food, goods, people and weapons. Some people refer to the hundreds of miles of tunnels as ‘the metro.’…

“The battle over the tunnels is a major reason that this war already has a high civilian death toll. More than two million people live above the tunnels — a layer of human life between many Hamas targets and Israeli missiles… Hamas has hidden many weapons under hospitals, schools and mosques so that Israel must risk killing civilians, and face an international backlash, when it fights. Hamas fighters also slip above and below ground, blending with civilians.

“These practices mean that Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths, according to international law, as David French, a Times Opinion writer and former military lawyer, has explained. Deliberately putting military resources near civilians and disguising fighters as civilians are both violations of the laws of war.” Hamas, an Iranian surrogate, does not care. And this is precisely why a quick victory, one that truly purges all of Hamas from Gaza, is either unlikely or at least augurs for a very, very long military challenge. Is there a better solution. Probably, but that is not likely for a while. Tempers must deal with reality first.

I’m Peter Dekom, and in the end, there will be no winners in this brutal conflict, one in which civilians are the low-hanging victims, pawns for the unscrupulous.