TA-ATTACKS: Palestinian Tunnellers Undermine Israeli Defences

After tunnelling for four months, militants dug an 800 meter tunnel starting from a house in the Palestinian area, and ending at an outpost on the Gaza-Egypt border. Packing the tunnel with 1.5 tons of explosives, Hamas carried out its deadliest outpost attack in more than four years. Five soldiers were killed in the explosion.



Very ingenious. While very "low-tech", it offers a perplexing scenario. How do you defend against this type of an attack? Is there a means to find these tunnels?
With the high tech sattelite imagery available nowadays, is it possible to see anamolies under the earths surface?

I would have to say that due to the success of this effort, that more will surely be coming.

[edit on 13-12-2004 by Banshee]

Be assured that when Israel responds to this, for which they eventually will, many will be crying "foul," "human rights violation," "the UN needs to get a grip on Israel," "those dern Zionists," etc.



seekerof

Be assured that when Israel responds to this, for which they eventually will, many will be crying "foul," "human rights violation," "the UN needs to get a grip on Israel," "those dern Zionists," etc.

Yep, I agree with you. It's like predicting the future. I would be very worried though about this type of tactic. Is there anything that is safe? A tunnel could be dug under just about anything.

Maybe if the americans transfer some of their HAARP ELF technology, they would have a better picture of whats going on under the ground. While I am not a big fan of Sharon I think it's pretty sad and stupid that some palestine extremist prematurely try to literally blow perspective for peacefull elections and negotiions out of the water

[edit on 13-12-2004 by Countermeasures]

Originally posted by Seekerof
Be assured that when Israel responds to this, for which they eventually will, many will be crying "foul," "human rights violation," "the UN needs to get a grip on Israel," "those dern Zionists," etc.

seekerof

Well massacreing civilians indesciminatly as retribution for the killing of soldiers isnt something to be encouraged, and it just furthers the problem by creating more pissed off youth who want to fight.

I am really suprised that we don't hear of Israel using some sort of ground penetrating radar to discover the tunnels.

Afterall such radar has discovered underground rivers in the Sahara, and buried ruins etc. Surely they could find tunnels in sand.

Interesting. Think they may have gotten the idea from North Korea??

According to north Korean defectors, Kim Il-Sung -- president of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- issued a sweeping order in the early 1970s that required every Korean People's Army division along the Demilitarized Zone to dig and maintain at least two tunnels into South Korea. The opposing United Nations Command had been aware of an earlier north Korean tunneling effort that never became an actuality, but was surprised when new evidence came up that indicated the north was hard at work underground again.

Reading towards the end of that article we find out there is a way of detecting these tunnels.

After detecting the sound of underground motors in May of 1989, the Army started excavation work using state-of-the-art reconnaissance devices developed by the Korean Institute for Science and Technology. They sent electric waves through antennas, which were put through excavation halls driven every 20 meters. Analyzing the transformation of the waves, they were able to pinpoint the tunnel's location as well as determine its size. Twenty-three days after they started digging, the counter-tunnel reached the North Korean tunnel. Forty-five Korean and foreign journalists were present at the scene of discovery of the fourth tunnel on March 3, 1990. The tunnel is 145 meters below the surface and is 2,052 meters long. It is located 26 km northeast of Yangku. The tunnel could allow the transit of some 30,000 soldiers per hour.

Maybe Israel and South Korea could work together to help each other in their own predicaments. Seol could provide the Jews with the technology and expertise to uncover these tunnels, while the Mossad can teach the Koreans how to make an enemy appear to die of natural causes

30,000 soldiers per hour

Thats some tunnel!!

It really isnt as easy as it seems to just dig a tunnel. After all it took them what 4 months to dig one 800 yards. Not to mention if you are in an urban area you will run into gas lines, water pipes, and power/phone/cable lines underground. If you happen to damage any of the above said it will have a noticeable affect on wherever it lead to, which in turn will bring about an investigation to fix the problem at its location. Thesolution is to dig deep enough but then of course it will take time. I don't think it is anything to truly worry about the machinery to do ti quickly will cause alot of noise and commotion that will be noticed, and it will take to long with more primitive means. Unless they were digging a several mile long tunnel into the heart of Jerusalem right under a government building with a very small scale nuclear device, I don't think effort and hard work will be a payoff to the terrorists. Hey they could always make a living jus selling the dirt off for landscaping to cover the costs

Another thing thats bugged me is how do they dispose of the dirt in a manner that doesn't attract attention. Fresh dirt on the ground would show up on satalittes.

Like I said, one man sets up shop in Jerusalem or makes a website, they haul off dirt in sacks and sell it for landscaping. Bam! your desire for a green garden has just put money into the hands of terrorists to kill Jews. Of course I doubt the dirt in tha area is of very high quality therefore probably isnt making too much money

They could temporarily stash it in a basement and in small portions throw the dirt into the sea and ore some of it in the main sewers...

I would have some spies watching the "nightfishers" at Gaza beach....especially if they seem to be bringing more to the sea than to the shore....


[edit on 17-12-2004 by Countermeasures]