Vast tunnel network in Gaza remains a challenge, say military experts

1 / 2
A girl carries a bucket of water at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday amid continuing battles between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
2 / 2
An explosion takes place in what Israel military said was a tunnel at AI Shifa Hospital complex before a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect, in Gaza, in this still image obtained from a handout video obtained by Reuters on November 24, 2023. (REUTERS)
Short Url
Updated 16 December 2023
Follow

Vast tunnel network in Gaza remains a challenge, say military experts

  • Since the war began, close to 19,000 people have been killed in Gaza, sparking international demands for a ceasefire and even calls from Israel’s staunch ally, the US, for a shift in strategy and more precise strikes

CAIRO: The Israeli army’s death toll in Gaza is already almost twice as high as during a ground offensive in 2014, a reflection of how far it has pushed into the enclave and of Hamas’ effective use of guerrilla tactics and an expanded arsenal.
Israeli military experts, an Israeli commander, and a Hamas source described how the Palestinian group has used a big weapons stockpile, its knowledge of the terrain, and a vast tunnel network to turn Gaza’s streets into a deadly maze.
At their disposal, they have arms ranging from drones rigged with grenades to anti-tank weapons with powerful twin charges.
Since Israel’s ground campaign began in late October, about 110 Israeli soldiers have been killed as tanks and infantry thrust into the cities and refugee camps, based on official Israeli figures. About a quarter were tank crew.
That compares with 66 in the 2014 conflict, when Israel launched a more limited three-week ground incursion but the goal then was not to eliminate Hamas.
“There is no comparing the scope of this war to 2014 when our forces mostly operated no deeper than a kilometer inside Gaza,” said Yaacov Amidror, a retired Israeli major-general and former national security adviser who is now at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America or JINSA.
He said the army “has yet to find a good solution for the tunnels,” a network hugely expanded in the past decade.
Israel’s offensive was launched after the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas gunmen.
Since the war began, close to 19,000 people have been killed in Gaza, sparking international demands for a ceasefire and even calls from Israel’s staunch ally, the US, for a shift in strategy and more precise strikes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel would wage war “until absolute victory.”
Israeli officials have said it could take months before it is complete.
“It has been a challenge from day one,” Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu, told Reuters, saying the offensive had come with a “huge price” in Israeli soldiers.
“We know that we wi’ll probably have to pay an additional price to complete the mission.”
Hamas has posted videos on its Telegram channel this month showing fighters with bodycams weaving through buildings to launch shoulder-held rockets at armored vehicles. One of them, posted on Dec. 7, was from Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, an area where both sides reported heavy fighting.
In another post on Dec. 5, a camera emerges from a tunnel, like a periscope, to scan an Israeli camp where soldiers rested. The post said an underground blast later hit it.
Reuters could not verify the videos.
A Hamas source, who spoke to Reuters from inside Gaza on condition of anonymity, said fighters moved as close as possible to launch ambushes, “taking advantage of the land we know like no others do,” often moving around or emerging from tunnels.
“There is a huge discrepancy between our power and their power; we don’t fool ourselves,” he said.
Hamas has not said how many of its fighters have been killed. Israel’s military has said it has killed at least 7,000. The group has previously dismissed the Israeli figure, saying it includes civilians.
Hamas spokespeople outside Gaza did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on this article.
An Israeli commander who fought in 2014 said the expanded scope of this operation meant more troops were on the ground, giving Hamas the “defender’s advantages,” so higher troop casualties were to be expected.
Israel’s military does not release troop numbers or other operational details.
Israel’s Channel 12 television showed one army reservist unit, wary of booby-trapped doors, smashing through the wall of a building to enter a room to discover a munitions cache.
Mirroring tactics used in 2014, Israel’s military has posted images on social media showing routes smashed through built-up areas by bulldozers so troops can avoid existing roads that might have land mines.
Even in some districts in north Gaza where many buildings have been pounded into rubble, bouts of fierce fighting have persisted.
“Hamas made some huge steps to build up its force since 2014,” said Eyal Pinko, a former senior official with Israel’s intelligence services who is now at Bar Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
He said some advanced arms, such as Russian-designed Kornet anti-tank missiles, were smuggled in with the help Iran.
But he said Hamas had mastered building other weapons in Gaza, such as RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades, and the militants now had a bigger munitions reserve.
Hamas posts have said the group’s weaponry includes “tandem” anti-tank weapons with two charges to pierce armor, which Pinko also said was in the militants’ arsenal.
Hamas videos often show big blasts when vehicles are hit.
Israeli military experts said a blast did not mean a vehicle was destroyed as they said it could also be caused by defensive systems that exploded to halt incoming projectiles.
Ashraf Abouelhoul, the managing editor of Egypt’s Al-Ahram daily who previously worked in Gaza and is a specialist on Palestinian affairs, said militants moved as close as possible to launch missiles and “locally-made projectiles.”
But he said Israeli drones and other tactics were eroding their ability to surprise, even in urban areas.
“City fighting has become more difficult” for the militants, he said.
Israel’s military posted a video this month that it said showed militants emerging from a tunnel under a bombed building before missiles struck both.
“Hamas may post their new weapons and tactics, but in principle, it remains a guerrilla resistance movement,” said Alexander Grinberg, a former Israeli military intelligence officer with the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

 


Iraq PM says Mosul airport to open in June, 10 years after Daesh capture

Updated 10 sec ago
Follow

Iraq PM says Mosul airport to open in June, 10 years after Daesh capture

  • On June 10, 2014, the Daesh group seized Mosul

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on Sunday ordered for the inauguration of the airport in second city Mosul to be held in June, marking 11 years since Islamists took over the city.
On June 10, 2014, the Daesh group seized Mosul, declaring its “caliphate” from there 19 days later after capturing large swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria.
After years of fierce battles, Iraqi forces backed by a US-led international coalition dislodged the group from Mosul in July 2017, before declaring its defeat across the country at the end of that year.
In a Sunday statement, Sudani’s office said the premier directed during a visit there “for the airport’s opening to be on June 10, coinciding with the anniversary of Mosul’s occupation, as a message of defiance in the face of terrorism.”
Over 80 percent of the airport’s runway and terminals have been completed, according to the statement.
Mosul’s airport had been completely destroyed in the fighting.
In August 2022, then-prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi laid the foundation stone for the airport’s reconstruction.
Sudani’s office also announced on Sunday the launch of a project to rehabilitate the western bank of the Tigris in Mosul, affirming that “Iraq is secure and stable and on the right path.”


Turkiye’s top diplomat meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus

Updated 22 December 2024
Follow

Turkiye’s top diplomat meets Syria’s new leader in Damascus

  • Hakan Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders
  • Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Bashar Assad’s fall

ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, Ankara’s foreign ministry said.
A video released by the Anadolu state news agency showed the two men greeting each other.
No details of where the meeting took place in the Syrian capital were released by the ministry.
Fidan had announced on Friday that he planned to travel to Damascus to meet Syria’s new leaders, who ousted Syria’s strongman Bashar Assad after a lightning offensive.
Turkiye’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalin had earlier visited the city on December 12, just a few days after Assad’s fall.
Kalin was filmed leaving the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, surrounded by bodyguards, as broadcast by the private Turkish channel NTV.
Turkiye has been a key backer of the opposition to Assad since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.
Besides supporting various militant groups, it has welcomed Syrian dissenters and millions of refugees.
However, Fidan has rejected claims by US president-elect Donald Trump that the militants’ victory in Syria constituted an “unfriendly takeover” of the country by Turkiye.


Syria’s de facto ruler reassures minorities, meets Lebanese Druze leader

Updated 22 December 2024
Follow

Syria’s de facto ruler reassures minorities, meets Lebanese Druze leader

  • Ahmed Al-Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as ‘a new era far removed from sectarianism’
  • Walid Jumblatt said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria

Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed Al-Sharaa hosted Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt on Sunday in another effort to reassure minorities they will be protected after Islamist militants led the ouster of Bashar Assad two weeks ago.
Sharaa said no sects would be excluded in Syria in what he described as “a new era far removed from sectarianism.”
Sharaa heads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the main group that forced Assad out on Dec. 8. Some Syrians and foreign powers have worried he may impose strict Islamic governance on a country with numerous minority groups such as Druze, Kurds, Christians and Alawites.
“We take pride in our culture, our religion and our Islam. Being part of the Islamic environment does not mean the exclusion of other sects. On the contrary, it is our duty to protect them,” he said during the meeting with Jumblatt, in comments broadcast by Lebanese broadcaster Al Jadeed.
Jumblatt, a veteran politician and prominent Druze leader, said at the meeting that Assad’s ouster should usher in new constructive relations between Lebanon and Syria. Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam.
Sharaa, dressed in a suit and tie rather than the military fatigues he favored in his militant days, also said he would send a government delegation to the southwestern Druze city of Sweida, pledging to provide services to its community and highlighting Syria’s “rich diversity of sects.”
Seeking to allay worries about the future of Syria, Sharaa has hosted numerous foreign visitors in recent days, and has vowed to prioritize rebuilding Syria, devastated by 13 years of civil war.


Pope Francis again condemns ‘cruelty’ of Israeli strikes on Gaza

Updated 22 December 2024
Follow

Pope Francis again condemns ‘cruelty’ of Israeli strikes on Gaza

  • Comes a day after the pontiff lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday
  • ‘And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty’

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis doubled down Sunday on his condemnation of Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip, denouncing their “cruelty” for the second time in as many days despite Israel accusing him of “double standards.”
“And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty,” the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.
It comes a day after the 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to Gaza’s rescue agency.
“Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war,” the pope told members of the government of the Holy See.
His remarks on Saturday prompted a sharp response from Israel.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman described Francis’s intervention as “particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel’s fight against jihadist terrorism — a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7.”
“Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people,” he added.
“Cruelty is terrorists hiding behind children while trying to murder Israeli children; cruelty is holding 100 hostages for 442 days, including a baby and children, by terrorists and abusing them,” the Israeli statement said.
This was a reference to the Hamas Palestinian militants who attacked Israel, killed many civilians and took hostages on October 7, 2023, triggering the Gaza war.
The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
That toll includes hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
At least 45,259 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in the Palestinian territory, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Those figures are taken as reliable by the United Nations.


Iran’s supreme leader says Syrian youth will resist incoming government

Updated 6 min 49 sec ago
Follow

Iran’s supreme leader says Syrian youth will resist incoming government

  • Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war
  • Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government

TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country.
Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family’s decades-long rule. Syria had long served as a key conduit for Iranian aid to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address on Sunday that the “young Syrian has nothing to lose” and suffers from insecurity following Assad’s fall.
“What can he do? He should stand with strong will against those who designed and those who implemented the insecurity,” Khamenei said. “God willing, he will overcome them.”
He accused the United States and Israel of plotting against Assad’s government in order to seize resources, saying: “Now they feel victory, the Americans, the Zionist regime and those who accompanied them.”
Iran and its militant allies in the region have suffered a series of major setbacks over the past year, with Israel battering Hamas in Gaza and landing heavy blows on Hezbollah before they agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon last month.
Khamenei denied that such groups were proxies of Iran, saying they fought because of their own beliefs and that the Islamic Republic did not depend on them. “If one day we plan to take action, we do not need proxy force,” he said.