With Israels war on Hamas advancing to the heart of Gazas main city in a little under six weeks, the army is looking to minimize the risk of confronting another challenge: infiltrating the groups vast, secret network of tunnels.
Anxious to limit losses among its soldiers, Israels military has deployed a complex array of technologies to probe and attempt to destroy the underground complexes and eventually the Hamas leadership including around Al Shifa hospital.
From the air, surveillance drones seek to detect the hidden structures, while warplanes are equipped with bunker-buster bombs designed to penetrate hardened structures to reach deep below the ground.
On the ground, bulldozers clear areas suspected to be above the subterranean network while attack dogs, unmanned vehicles and robots are used to help explore the underground terrain.
Also in the militarys arsenal is a new weapon: a chemical grenade that doesnt contain explosives but rapidly expands and solidifies foam to seal off entrances, known as a sponge bomb.The hi-tech tactics aim to avoid the risk of sending soldiers into Hamass several hundred kilometers of tunnels, where Israel believes highly-armed militants are protecting themselves from the ongoing Gaza assault.
The military is instead prioritizing the blocking and damaging of the network which may not be enough to root out the group and help Israel achieve its ultimate aim: ensuring Hamass destruction.Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the US and European Union.
Israels defense ministry has approached numerous companies for help in the mission, including non-defense startups like Asterra, an Israeli firm whose software detects underground water leaks using satellite imagery.Highly dangerousHamas has for years made use of tunnels under the densely-populated coastal strip to conceal weapons, command facilities and fighters.
Israel has specially trained combat engineers but entering the subterranean labyrinth is still highly dangerous because of booby-traps and the defenders superior knowledge of the area.
Theres no need to go into any tunnel if we dont have a real reason do it, said Itamar Yaar, a former deputy head of Israels National Security Council.
The best solution is try to collapse these tunnels to disconnect different underground sites.But without deploying ground forces, its hard to verify the extent of damage inflicted by bombing, according to Daphn Richemond-Barak, an expert on underground warfare at Reichman University in Tel Aviv.That risks the hostilities dragging on for months.
Thousands of people have already been reported killed in Gaza, mainly in Israeli airstrikes since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that killed some 1,200 people.The tunnels could also be re-purposed for a long-term insurgency after the war ends, Richemond-Barak warned.They need to destroy the whole tunnel system.
Its very important, said Richemond-Barak.
As the difficulty becomes more apparent and as the pressure mounts to put an end to this operation, I worry that the job is going to be left half done.