Last weekend Israel announced the destruction of the longest and deepest Hamas attack tunnel reaching into Israel from Gaza. The Israeli army released a video on Sunday, showcasing the new, special “laboratory” it established for locating cross-border tunnels dug from the Hamas-run coastal enclave into Israel.
The tunnel was the longest and deepest yet built by Hamas, and was “ready for use,” military officials said. Because it was part of a wider tunnel system, it could potentially have been used by very large numbers of Hamas terrorists, dispatched to try to carry out terror attacks inside Israeli territory, Israel’s Hadashot TV news reported on Sunday afternoon.
As part of the effort to locate and thwart terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip, the IDF established a unique technological laboratory which has a specific goal of detecting and locating tunnels. The Gaza Division, under the command of Captain B, created the laboratory two years ago. Captain B is an electrical engineer and a chemist by training and works with some of the best minds in a variety of technological and research positions, including physicists, engineers, intelligence personnel and geologists from the Technology and Logistics Branch.
It takes technological, intelligence, and operational efforts, working together, to locate and thwart terror tunnels. The laboratory itself is the technological branch of tunnel detection and uses innovative ground research such as scanning cavities and their dynamics. The laboratory also works to improve existing technologies, striving to develop new discovery and mapping techniques. The laboratory personnel work closely with the intelligence personnel, engineering forces, and other units in the field until the tunnel is located. Once a terror tunnel is detected it’s monitored until finally thwarted.
The combination of technological, intelligence, and operational activity have drastically improved the rate of terror tunnel detection drastically. Over the last few months, the laboratory has successfully located and thwarted five terror tunnels. The lab also received a certificate of excellence from the Head of the Technological Brigade in the Technology and Logistics Branch.
(With inputs from IDF)
