An Israeli army officer walks in a tunnel said to be used by Palestinian militants for cross-border attacks July 25.(JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary
Israeli troops have spent nine days in the Gaza Strip, and resistance from Palestinian militants has reportedly been dropping. The Israeli military is reporting that it has been able to secure the areas it has moved into. Thus, the ground invasion seems to have accomplished its initial limited goal of damaging the tunnels leading from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has told troops that Israel might significantly widen the Gaza ground operation. The expansion of any limited Israel Defense Forces operation likely will not address a fundamental point in Gaza: There is no long-term military solution apart from occupation, which would come with a high political cost and would create new targets for Palestinian militants.
Analysis
The Israeli military's ground operation thus far has been limited to the perimeter of the Gaza Strip, although the fighting on some occasions has brushed the edges of densely populated areas, especially near Gaza City, where the Golani Brigade has been deployed, and near Khan Younis, where the Paratroopers Brigade is operating. The activity near heavily populated areas has led to intense fighting and more Israeli casualties than previous operations in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has confirmed that 35 soldiers were killed during the ground incursion, compared with only 13 deaths in Operation Cast Lead (2008-09) and two during Operation Pillar of Defense (2012). In Cast Lead, 1,417 Palestinians died; in Pillar of Defense, an estimated 50-100 were killed. Palestinian casualties in the latest incursion, Operation Protective Edge, are in excess of 800.
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Meanwhile, rocket fire from Gaza has dropped gradually to the lowest point since the beginning of the Israeli operation. Militants fired 63 rockets from Gaza on July 24; before that date, the average number of rockets fired per day was 130. This may be a sign that Hamas is scaling back while working toward a cease-fire, but it could also be the result of logistical challenges -- besides supply disruptions and the destruction of stockpiles, the very act of firing rockets at a sustained rate diminishes rocket reserves. Israel has not been able to completely halt the rocket fire because launch sites, Hamas' leadership, underground stockpiles and manufacturing facilities are located in more densely populated areas of Gaza's main cities, not in the tunnel networks on the Gaza border.
The Strategic Advantage of Tunnels
Hamas has used tunnels extensively in the past, but it is using them even more during the most recent escalation. Tunnels are crucial to diminishing Israel's advantage in air power. Palestinian militants have acquired an expertise in tunnel construction over the past decade of being forced underground by Israeli air power. They use household tools, such as shovels, to dig through the soft clay soil. Common construction materials, such as concrete, wood and steel, reinforce the walls, making them harder to destroy and able to withstand higher traffic. If Israeli troops demolish only the entrance to a tunnel, militants can reopen it in weeks or even days.
There are three broad types of tunnel networks beneath Gaza, each with a unique function. On the Egypt-Gaza border there are smuggling tunnels, which Israel and Egypt have not yet been able to render permanently inoperable. Then there are internal tunnel networks inside the Gaza Strip. These strategic tunnels are primarily used to avoid constant observation by Israel so militants can stockpile weapons. During combat, these tunnels serve a range of purposes, including enabling the movement of forces and materiel and providing shelter and command nodes for Hamas' leadership. Militants also use these tunnels to lay mines and kidnap ground personnel, or as space to service rocket launch sites. The third category is the offensive tunnels that cross the border into Israel. Damaging the third type of tunnels is the stated impetus for the current ground incursion.
Israel's Options for Shutting Down Tunnels
Before the ground incursion, Israel Defense Forces would typically locate tunnels by observation -- for example, spotting militants who have surfaced to fire rockets -- or using remote sensing techniques. However, these methods are helpful only to locate and destroy tunnel entrances. Now that the ground incursion is well underway, Israeli forces can detect tunnels as they go from building to building searching for entrances. When this happens, soldiers from the combat engineers unit, specializing in counter-tunnel operations, typically lower a robot into the shaft. Not only can the robot send back video to the squad above ground, but it can also map the tunnel's route and determine its material composition.
Mapping large portions of the tunnels is important because it enables Israeli forces to destroy large sections accurately. A standard one-ton bomb dropped from a plane will readily penetrate the concrete-reinforced tunnels, but in order to completely demolish a tunnel system, heavy drilling equipment must be brought in and hundreds of kilograms of explosives have to be inserted into the passage all along its length. Special mixes of cement injected at high pressure can also be used.
The ground operation so far has only trimmed the edge of the entire tunnel network. While Israel Defense Forces have effectively damaged the offensive tunnel network, the bulk of the strategic tunnel networks beneath the population centers remains. To further degrade Gaza militants' infrastructure and leadership, Israeli forces would need to expand the ground operation, moving from their entrenched positions deeper into the highly populated urban cores. Combat in the Shejaiya neighborhood on the far eastern side of Gaza City demonstrated what the results can be of intense urban fighting, in which many of the Israeli military's advantages over the militants are lessened.
Any expansion of operations would clear more territory, but it would require more manpower and would come at a high cost for both combatants and civilians. Moreover, the moment the ground operation ends, the militants will begin to rebuild their arsenals and their infrastructure with plans that incorporate the lessons learned from the recent fighting.
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