WarSclerotic

Israel Tests Hi-Tech Tunnel Detection System

By Inna Lazareva, Jaffa

1:31PM BST 23 Jul 2014

Many bemoan fact that such a large number of tunnels dug by Hamas from Gaza into Israel have gone undetected for so long

Gas deployed by the Israeli army gushes out of a hole in a tunnel which was used by Hamas militants Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Deep in the bowels of Tel Aviv’s underground, engineers and scientists recently conducted trials of a new hi-tech detection system that aims to eradicate the threat posed by Hamas’s underground tunnels.

As international pressure mounts to end the current round of fighting between Israel and Hamas, and the operation in Gaza continues to claim more and more lives, the IDF is racing against time in order to discover as many tunnels as possible.

But once the IDF withdraws from Gaza, there are currently no mechanisms in place to prevent Hamas and others from digging new tunnels into Israel.

In a bid to find a solution, the IDF’s elite Talpiot unit has been working on developing a tunnel detection system which was tested in Tel Aviv. Its costs are estimated to be $59 million.

“The high-tech system, which uses special sensors and transmitters, is still in its R&D phase, and if all goes well, should be operational within a year”, notes a report on Israel’s I-24 news.

The most common type of technology for tracking down tunnels is focused on listening for sounds of digging, notes Inbal Orpaz in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Another Israeli company, Magna, already provides defence systems for the Israel-Egypt border, as well as for the nuclear reactor sites in Japan. It proposes digging a 70-km tunnel along the Israel-Gaza border, equipped with a sensitive alert system.

This “will provide real-time alerts of any tunnel digging that crosses our tunnel, whether above or below it. The IDF will know exactly where the attack tunnel is and how many people are in it, and can monitor the progress of digging it in real time, and decide how to respond to the threat,” the company’s founder and CEO Haim Siboni told Israel’s Globes publication.

While hi-tech solutions are being tested and debated, many in Israel bemoan the fact that such a large number of tunnels dug from Gaza into Israeli territory have gone undetected for so long.

“For 10 years I’ve been crying and screaming to the highest possible levels – to the Defense Ministry, the chief of staff, the commanding officers of southern and northern command,” Dr Joseph Langotsky, an Israeli geologist who has long advocated greater attention to the issue of the tunnels, said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

“Although the tunnels are a low-tech option, they might be a strategic threat to our security,” said Dr Langotsky.

The U.S. should push for the disarming of Hamas in Gaza-Israel cease-fire – The Washington Post.

A Palestinian man stands amid the debris following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City. (Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

THE DISTINGUISHING feature of the latest war between Israel and Hamas is “offensive tunnels,” as the Israeli army calls them. As of early Wednesday, 28 had been uncovered in Gaza, and nearly half extend into Israel, according to Israeli officials.

The tunnels are the reason that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu decided last weekend to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, and they explain why that operation has strong support from Israelis in spite of the relatively heavy casualties it has inflicted. Most significantly, the tunnels show why it has been difficult to reach a cease-fire and why any accord must forge a new political and security order in Gaza.

Hamas’s offensive tunnels should not be confused with the burrows it has dug under Gaza’s border with Egypt to smuggle money, consumer goods and military equipment. The newly discovered structures have only one conceivable purpose: to launch attacks inside Israel. Three times in recent days, Hamas fighters emerged from the tunnels in the vicinity of Israeli civilian communities, which they clearly aimed to attack. The ­concrete-lined structures are stocked with materials, such as handcuffs and tranquilizers, that could be used on hostages. Other tunnels in northern Gaza are designed for the storage and firing of missiles at Israeli cities.

The resources devoted by Hamas to this project are staggering, particularly in view of Gaza’s extreme poverty. By one Israeli account, the typical tunnel cost $1 million to build over the course of several years, using tons of concrete desperately needed for civilian housing. By design, many of the tunnels have entrances in the heavily populated Shijaiyah district, where the Israeli offensive has been concentrated. One was found underneath al-Wafa hospital, where Hamas also located a command post and stored weapons, according to Israeli officials.

The depravity of Hamas’s strategy seems lost on much of the outside world, which — following the terrorists’ script — blames Israel for the civilian casualties it inflicts while attempting to destroy the tunnels. While children die in strikes against the military infrastructure that Hamas’s leaders deliberately placed in and among homes, those leaders remain safe in their own tunnels. There they continue to reject cease-fire proposals, instead outlining a long list of unacceptable demands.

One of those demands is for a full reopening of Gaza’s land and sea borders. While this would allow relief and economic development for the territory’s population, it would also allow Hamas to import more missiles and concrete for new tunnels. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the Egyptian government and other would-be brokers are right to seek a cease-fire, but they should reject Hamas’s agenda. Instead, any political accord should come after a cease-fire and be negotiated with the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. It should link opening of the borders and other economic concessions to the return to Gaza of the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, the disarmament of Hamas and elections for a new government.

In setting such conditions, international mediators will likely have the quiet support of most of Gaza’s population. Polls show that they are fed up with Hamas’s rule and with its use of women and children as cannon fodder in unwinnable wars with Israel. The next government of Gaza should be one that invests in schools, health clinics and houses, not in tunnels.

FAA, reviewing Israeli measures, lifts flight ban | Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Israel denounces UNHRC as ‘kangaroo court’ Jerusalem Post,  Tovah Lazaroff, July 24, 2014

(The UNHRC claims to be four-square in favor of “proportionality.” Shouldn’t it lead the way by showing at least a smidgen of proportionality itself? — DM)

Council to probe Israeli “war crimes” after holding a special emergency session in Geneva on the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza; US was the only one of 47-member states to oppose the probe.

OVERVIEW OF the Human Rights Council at the UNHRC Photo: Reuters

Israel attacked as a “travesty” a UN decision on Wednesday to probe its actions against Hamas in Gaza on the same day that the terrorist organization launched 80 rockets against it, targeting civilian areas.

“This investigation by a kangaroo court is a foregone conclusion,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The United Nations Human Rights Council ordered the probe after holding a special emergency session in Geneva on the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. The US was the only one of 47-member states to oppose the probe, while 29 countries approved it. Another 17 states abstained, including Israel’s European allies – the UK, Germany and France – who have verbally backed Israel against Hamas.

Among those countries who supported the probe were Russia, China, India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa.

Prior to the vote, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned that Israel could be committing war crimes in Gaza.

“There seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated in a manner that could amount to war crimes,” she told the UNHRC.

The head of the UNHRC is scheduled to appoint an “international commission of inquiry” to look at Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories, with a focus on Gaza, but including the West Bank and east Jerusalem, since the June 12 Palestinian kidnapping of three Israeli teens.

The commission is tasked with identifying those responsible for “violations of international humanitarian law,” and with holding the violators accountable and ending their impunity.

Israel said such a probe only emboldens Hamas and encourages its policy of using civilians as human shields.

“Rather than investigate Hamas, which is committing a double war crime by firing rockets at Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians, the UNHRC calls for an investigation of Israel,” the Prime Minister’s Office said.

According to the IDF, Hamas has launched 2,249 rockets against Israel over the past 16 days. The UNHRC should be investigating Hamas’s use of hospitals as military command centers, schools as a weapons depots and its placement of missile batteries next to playgrounds, private homes and mosques, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

“The UNHRC is sending a message to Hamas and terrorist organizations everywhere that using civilians as human shields is an effective strategy,” it said.

The Prime Minister’s Office equated this probe to the infamous UNHRC Goldstone Report on Israel’s military incursion into Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.

“The predictable result will be the libeling of Israel and even greater use of human shields in the future by Hamas,” said the Prime Minister’s Office. “Those who will pay the price will be not only Israelis but also Palestinians who Hamas will redouble its efforts to use as human shields in the future.”

But Pillay told the council that the loss of life in Gaza was disproportionate to the threat facing Israel. Since July 7, Israel has bombed Gaza from the land, sea and air, resulting in the deaths of 600 Palestinians including 147 children and 74 women, she said.

“As we saw during the two previous crises in 2009 and 2012, it is innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip, including children, women, the elderly and persons with disabilities, who are suffering the most,” Pillay said.

Preliminary UN figures show that 74% of those killed by IDF attacks in Gaza have been civilians, she said.

“Hundreds of homes and other civilian buildings, such as schools, have been destroyed or severely damaged in Gaza, and more than 140,000 Palestinians have been displaced as a result,” Pillay said. She condemned Hamas’s indiscriminate launching of rockets against Israel that endangers Israelis, killing three civilians in the past 16 days.

“I further emphasize that it is unacceptable [for Hamas] to locate military assets in densely populated areas or to launch attacks from such areas. However, international law is clear: The actions of one party do not absolve the other party of the need to respect its obligations under international law.

“Even where a home is identified as being used for military purposes, any attack must be proportionate, offer a definite military advantage in the prevailing circumstances at the time, and precautions must be taken,” she said.

In the wake of Pillay’s comments and approval of the probe, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman labeled the UNHRC as the “council for the rights of terrorists.”

Let Israel Decide, Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2014

Nations must be militarily strong and determined enough to ensure their own survival. Israelis have long understood this harsh reality of global politics, and it has never been clearer than this week as the world browbeats Israel and the terror group Hamas for a “cease-fire” in Gaza.

President Obama and John Kerry have adopted this ostensibly even-handed trope, and on Tuesday the European Union went further and deplored Israel and Hamas as if they were equal perpetrators. Hamas should stop its “criminal and unjustifiable acts,” the EU said, but it added that it was “particularly appalled” at the human cost of the Israel ground offensive. Particularly?

This all may be intended as fine impartiality, but the reality is that a cease-fire now would help Hamas. The terror group rejected Egypt’s offer of a cease-fire last week after Israel had accepted it, perhaps figuring that Israel wouldn’t risk a ground invasion. Or perhaps it wanted such an invasion figuring the world would condemn Israel for civilian casualties and Hamas would win the propaganda war.

In any case now that it has moved on the ground, Israel will lose if it stops before it achieves its main military objectives. This means blowing up the entire network of tunnels that Hamas uses to infiltrate into Israel and to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egypt. It also means destroying the stockpiles of rockets and storage sites.

The Israelis are best positioned to judge their progress, and the U.S. should publicly support its military response in a war it didn’t start. This is what will bring the most rapid end to the violence.