How Israel learned to fight Hamas deep under ground

[Pelican Press 0]

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How ******* learned to ****** ****** deep under ground

When politicians have allowed the ******* Defence Force to operate, it has

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About 50 per cent of ****** terrorists have been *******, according to *******, and as the anniversary of the war approaches, the remainder are only able to ****** a guerrilla insurgency.

It has been anything but easy. The secret of the IDF’s success? Combat in the darkness underground.

Initially bamboozled by an elusive ****** moving like ghosts, ******** forces

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A new doctrine was developed to deal with them. This involved co-ordinating air support, special forces, regular infantry, armour and naval assets on the surface

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“If you want to understand how to manoeuvre in Gaza, think from underground up and manoeuvre your forces simultaneously on the surface and in the tunnels,” one general told me.

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******** troops stand in an unusually large Gazan tunnel near the border with Egypt – Telegram/IDF

These ambitious military tactics had never been attempted before. Maintaining effective communication between such a range of forces so that they worked seamlessly, without ******* on each other, was a challenge.

But the approach is bearing fruit. At the start of the war, the ******* Defence Force (IDF) was able to clear up to 100 feet of territory a day and did not dare enter the tunnels. Today, its troops can manoeuvre faster underground than on the surface.

*******’s initial approach

Before the new tactics were developed, the approach was simple. A “technological blanket” was placed over Gaza, allowing commanders in the field to call in an air strike on any position within three minutes.

Troops would evacuate civilians from an area, clear it of the ****** and ***** any shafts they found. Then they would advance to the next patch.

But rockets would soon be launched from the very place they had just cleared. With so many shafts to choose from, terrorists were simply slipping away underground and returning when the IDF moved on.

The Israelis realised they had underestimated the catacombs. ****** was able to travel the entire length of Gaza underground, in a single network of remarkable proportions. Although Gaza is just 25 miles long, this labyrinth spanned 300 miles, ******* than the London Underground.

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******** soldiers use a camera to inspect a ****** command tunnel in February – Dylan Martinez/REUTERS

The terrorists’ tactics were as infuriating as they were deadly. The tunnels, which had been under construction since 2006, allowed them to materialise and dematerialise at will, exposing themselves only fleetingly.

They would appear alarmingly close to ******** forces, *******, then vanish again. Their ******* of choice was the new Al-Yassin 105 rocket-propelled grenade, a homemade flying explosive.

Although it has an effective range of just 250 feet, its dual-charge payload has the capacity to penetrate the reactive armour of ******** Merkava tanks then explode inside them.

Shafts ‘in every building’

Nothing is sacred in Gaza. According to IDF commanders, there is “not one mosque, school or hospital that does not contain a ****** shaft”, with openings even discovered inside graves.

******** soldiers recuperating in vacated homes in Gaza discovered tunnels under their feet which could be opened via a mechanism in the floor tiles.

Troops declared houses safe, only to be attacked at close quarters without warning. That was why so much of the Strip’s infrastructure had to be destroyed, the IDF said.

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This tunnel, found near the border with Egypt, is big enough for vehicles – Telegraph/IDF

The shallowest part of the tunnel network resembled an asymmetrical candelabra. Several vertical shafts led to one horizontal tunnel serviced by a main artery, from which branched other horizontal tunnels and shafts.

A few yards from the surface, there were defensive doors to block pursuers and protect against explosions.

This system connected to larger subterranean highways running the length of Gaza, which led to atria containing offices, guard rooms and living quarters, sometimes complete with barred cells for the ******** captives.

Decision to go underground

With ******** soldiers dying on the surface, there was a need to finish this quickly.

The tunnels mostly rely on solar power, but energy is also allegedly syphoned out of schools, mosques, municipal buildings and ******* Nations facilities above ground (a ****** intelligence centre was

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, its power cables threaded into the building).

Water is stored underground in tanks and plumbed through the network, alongside a rudimentary sewage system.

Switching off the power and enforcing a full siege would starve and suffocate the ****** but it would also deprive civilians of the essentials, creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

Instead, the IDF was forced

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. A special task force was created, drawn from different disciplines across the armed forces.

Lessons were learned every day: leaders held debriefs both in the morning and the evening to absorb new insights and adapt tactics accordingly.

Compared to the volume of studies into combat on the surface, in the air, at sea and in space, there is very little research on underground warfare. One model was the campaign conducted against the Americans in tunnels on the island of Iwo Jima by the ********* during the Second World War.

Civilian casualties reduced

But although fighting underground is dangerous for ******** servicemen, it does keep civilian casualties down.

Not expecting the IDF to enter the tunnels, ****** had permitted no ************ civilians to shelter there. This allowed the soldiers to enter the labyrinth and ****** on sight, while

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At the end of 2023, the first soldiers descended into the earth, assisted by infra-red vision, high-tech navigation gadgets and dogs with cameras on their backs who were given instructions by radio.

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Soldiers in Khan Younis in December, when they found and destroyed several shafts – IDF/GPO/SIPA/Shutterstock

The IDF’s canine unit has ******* dogs, search-and-rescue dogs and dogs trained to detect explosives. Sometimes they were able to lower cameras into the tunnels attached to explosives which could be detonated when terrorists were seen approaching.

It quickly became clear that the subterranean world had not been designed for combat. There were no trap-doors, alcoves or other cover. There were relatively few ******-traps and the tunnels tended to be long and straight, making them difficult to defend.

Rather, they had been designed to evade hostilities on the surface and manoeuvre around Gaza without detection. “The ****** was using flashlights,” one commander said. “Nobody looks for a ****** with a flashlight.”

Systematic tunnel network

The network was built on a pattern that repeated throughout Gaza. The shafts led to narrow tunnels with arched ceilings built to a standard height of five-and-a-half feet, meaning that troops had to hunch as they advanced.

Arabic directions were spray-painted on the walls, which helped the soldiers to navigate, though they mainly relied on advanced technological solutions.

Despite the ventilation, the labyrinth was dominated by a musty smell, to which soldiers adapted. The walls and floors were made of rectangular concrete slabs, imprinted with a distinctive logo. Commanders developed the ability to spot openings on the surface by recognising branded materials around them.

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, opening out into larger rooms with ceilings ten feet high. Each atrium hosted an identical cluster of bathrooms, bedrooms, guard rooms and offices, complete with telephones and electricity.

The living quarters were more comfortable, with green Astroturf underfoot, brown-and-white patterned tiles on the walls, electric fans and storage for personal effects.

There were many jars of extra-strong vitamins for pregnant women. “We captured some terrorists who had been in the tunnels for 60 days,” one commander told me. “They were ruined.” The bathrooms were tiled white with purple stripes.

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, with a thin mattress on the floor, tiled walls and a lavatory in the rear that was visible through the bars.

In the areas reserved for commanders

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such as those seen in the

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, which was filmed on Oct 10. These were used to keep lower ranks from entering leadership zones.

“It is huge. Amazing. Mind blowing,” one officer said. “As a commander, I take my hat off to their infrastructure.”

Shallow headquarters

One aspect of the labyrinth that took the IDF by surprise was the location of the various underground headquarters. They had expected them to be deeply *******, but figures like Rafa’a Salameh, the Khan Younis commander who played a key role in planning October 7 and was ******* in an air strike in July, used offices ******* just 50-65 feet below his family home.

“His daily working life was underground,” one general said. “We were amazed. There was no need for him to appear above ground. He had his office with telephones and connectivity in the tunnels, then he would walk up a shaft into his home.”

Many of these command centres included cells for ******** hostages, suggesting that the terrorists may have intended to rely on human shields to ward off attacks. “They have a different way of thinking,” the general said.

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The mouth of a tunnel which the IDF said lay partly underneath the UNRWA ******** agency – Jack Guez/AFP via Getty

****** responded to ******** underground warfare by using ****** traps in the tunnels, adapting as the IDF adapted. They used 40kg Shawaz explosives, triggered via a wire by someone on the other side of the tunnel wall. As they could not be detonated remotely, their effectiveness was limited.

The interconnectedness of the network offered the IDF an advantage: soldiers could access any point from any other point, so if they responded to a sighting quickly, they could hunt the terrorists underground, trap them and ***** them.

“Once I manoeuvre into the tunnel, they smell me a mile away,” one soldier told me. “So we start moving very fast and efficiently underground, navigating using our technology.”

Blistering progress

The pace of progress has been blistering. When the IDF entered Khan Younis in December, it took them four months to clear 37 miles of tunnels.

Months later, in Shejaiya, they destroyed a similar network in just two weeks, over June and July.

The IDF now plans its manoeuvres from the catacombs upwards.

“We have learned to combine our operations,” a commander said. “Today, when I plan manoeuvres, I do it underground and above ground simultaneously to achieve the best objective.”

Special forces and regular infantry advance simultaneously, both on the surface and under the ground.

“We leave one opening free to enable them to be flushed out, so we can gather intelligence,” the commander said. “It is frustrating and it takes time. But this way of thinking is our new doctrine.”

Not all soldiers are able to cope underground. Some find it claustrophobic and terrifying. But if ****** is to be defeated, another October 7 is to be avoided, and the region to have a chance of peace, conquering the catacombs is crucial.

According to ******** intelligence, many terrorists have blended into the civilian population in humanitarian zones and plan to return to their tunnels once ******* withdraws. For this reason alone,

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Philadelphi corridor

As I write, the IDF is scouring the Philadelphi corridor, a nine-mile strip of land along the Gaza border threaded with more than two hundred tunnels into Egypt used for smuggling.

Combat engineers are drilling down to the water table every seven metres, lowering fibre-optic cameras and blowing up any burrows that they find. And so the campaign grinds gradually towards victory.

Every ******** child grows up singing a folk song written by Baruch Chait, the ******, and popularised by the Yemenite singer Ofra Haza.

“The whole world is like a very narrow bridge and the most important thing is not to be afraid,” the lyrics say.

As the IDF presses ****** towards the abyss by sending its young men to ****** the jihadis in the blackness of the tunnels, with

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and international pressure mounting, they are having to draw on this spirit more than ever.

Jake Wallis Simons is the editor of the ******* Chronicle

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#******* #learned #****** #****** #deep #ground

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