The enemy below
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 10:42 pm
Why Hamas tunnels scare Israel so much
By Gerard DeGroot
The Washington Post
Adm. Luis Carrero Blanco was a model of predictability. That predictability killed him.
Carrero Blanco, the Spanish prime minister handpicked by Francisco Franco to be his successor, attended the same Mass daily at a church in Madrid. For five months in 1973, a small group of ETA militants, pretending to be students, rented a basement flat on the street the admiral faithfully traveled. They burrowed under the road and packed the tunnel with 175 pounds of explosives. On Dec. 20, a huge blast threw Carrero Blanco’s car over the roof of a five-story building, and Franco’s hopes of a smooth succession were vaporized.
Tunnels are a simple solution to an age-old wartime problem: how to attack a well-defended enemy. In justifying its ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has publicized scenarios of Hamas fighters pouring forth from dozens of “terror tunnels” crossing from Gaza into Israel, ready to launch lightning attacks on kibbutzim or to blow up Israel Defense Forces positions. Such scenarios are powerful because tunnels evoke a peculiar horror — as though the devil himself were emerging from hell to spread torment on Earth.
If a target is disciplined and well fortified, like Israel, attackers have difficulty traversing the battlefield to engage it. By providing concealment up to the moment of engagement, tunnels are a labor-intensive but cheap alternative. Yahya al-Sinwar, a Hamas political bureau member, recently boasted that tunnels have shifted the fortunes of war in favor of the Palestinians. “Today, we are the ones who invade the Israelis,” he said. “They do not invade us.”
Gerard DeGroot is a professor of history at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of 13 books on 20th-century war and politics.
MORE
By Gerard DeGroot
The Washington Post
Adm. Luis Carrero Blanco was a model of predictability. That predictability killed him.
Carrero Blanco, the Spanish prime minister handpicked by Francisco Franco to be his successor, attended the same Mass daily at a church in Madrid. For five months in 1973, a small group of ETA militants, pretending to be students, rented a basement flat on the street the admiral faithfully traveled. They burrowed under the road and packed the tunnel with 175 pounds of explosives. On Dec. 20, a huge blast threw Carrero Blanco’s car over the roof of a five-story building, and Franco’s hopes of a smooth succession were vaporized.
Tunnels are a simple solution to an age-old wartime problem: how to attack a well-defended enemy. In justifying its ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has publicized scenarios of Hamas fighters pouring forth from dozens of “terror tunnels” crossing from Gaza into Israel, ready to launch lightning attacks on kibbutzim or to blow up Israel Defense Forces positions. Such scenarios are powerful because tunnels evoke a peculiar horror — as though the devil himself were emerging from hell to spread torment on Earth.
If a target is disciplined and well fortified, like Israel, attackers have difficulty traversing the battlefield to engage it. By providing concealment up to the moment of engagement, tunnels are a labor-intensive but cheap alternative. Yahya al-Sinwar, a Hamas political bureau member, recently boasted that tunnels have shifted the fortunes of war in favor of the Palestinians. “Today, we are the ones who invade the Israelis,” he said. “They do not invade us.”
Gerard DeGroot is a professor of history at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He is the author of 13 books on 20th-century war and politics.
MORE