A senior Israeli defense official revealed that a massive underground barrier, which is under construction along the Gaza Strip’s security fence, should be completed in a matter of months.
The underground barrier is meant to defend the Jewish state against attack tunnels penetrating Israel from the Palestinian enclave, which Islamist organizations led by Hamas have constructed as a strategic tool that allows them to conduct incursions into Israeli territory. The underground barrier stretches along Israel’s 60-kilometer security fence with the Gaza Strip, and is expected to be some dozens of meters deep. The Israeli defense official called the barrier a ‘key strategic project’ that will turn the underground battlefield into a ‘death trap’ for Hamas, while nothing that the IDF conducts special training for subterranean combat, meant to prepare Israel for the next round of fighting against Palestinian militants.
Since the last war, during the summer of 2014, Israel has announced the discovery of several – of what it defined as – ‘terror tunnels’. Israel has already surrounded Gaza with a sophisticated fence above the ground, fortified with sensors, cameras, barbed wire and watch towers. But in a Palestinian effort to limit Israel’s aerial superiority in battle, the Islamist organizations in Gaza are focused on conducting most of the warfare underground, constructing an entire network of attack and defense tunnels across the entire Palestinian enclave.