There is a chorus of views floating globally to arrive at a ceasefire between the Israel Defence Force (IDF) and Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip against the background of an intense escalation that has come as a retaliatory action in response to the gruesome attack unleashed by the Hamas on Israel on October 7.
There is a genuineness in the concern that is shown towards the Palestinian civilians. The Hamas’ attack against Israel is not a conclusive one and the winning percentage is abysmally low. It is not indeed promoting the Palestinian cause. It is defeating and complicating the possibility of peace and coexistence for the Palestinian people. Violence is, therefore, not an answer to a political or territorial problem.
Moreover, Hamas’ forever attack against Israel is not its independent action. There are several actors, both regional and international, working in tandem to brew the conflict in the region. The reason for such an extension of support is ideological, geopolitical, and commercial. The lethal weapons that Hamas and Hezbollah have stockpiled in the labyrinth of tunnels underground explain the arms business that thrives in the region. Against this background, can Israelis and Palestinians ever live in peace? When the war happens for the war per se, the objective is not to win but to have the war nevertheless. The question arises — can Israel win?
From the look of it, it may seem Israel is inflicting massive casualties on the Palestinian people, and no doubt Israel does. But, is Israel in a position to do or undo a war? Israel finds itself in a complex situation. It has to fight the narrative war that projects it as a cause of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. It also has to defeat Hamas for its gruesome unleashing of terror in Israel on October 7 killing 1400 Israeli civilians, injuring thousands, and kidnapping many. This mayhem cannot be left unpunished from the Israeli point of view.
But Hamas’ hybrid warfare, its underground preparedness, and its tactics of operating from the civilian infrastructure present serious challenges for the IDF to make any definitive and precise targeting. Hamas knows how to mutate and deceive. It has developed complex and labyrinthine tunnel infrastructure in Gaza. This shields the Hamas from precise targeting and elimination from the enemy front. Moreover, the human infrastructure it uses to protect itself makes the IDF exercise restraint because civilian casualty helps Hamas win the narrative war through several virtual platforms and derive sympathies from recognised international organisations.
Tunnel infrastructure and deep preparedness that Hamas has made will not make IDF an easy run into the former’s home turf. The IDF will have to witness incredible casualties which Israel cannot afford to do knowing its thin demography. The exercise also will see the massive civilian casualties in Gaza. This may make Israel earn ill fame internationally and may force the Islamic nations to constitute a confederacy to collectively attack Israel. This has happened in history and nothing is surprising about it.
Gaza is a densely populated region that is 41 km long and 12 km wide. Hamas has claimed to have constructed a 500km long tunnel, a part of which is reported to have been destroyed by IDF in 2021. The status of the current tunnel network at present is difficult to determine as Hamas relies mostly on tunnel infrastructure. It is expected to be more circuitous, extensive, and loaded with more than required cutting-edge weaponry. Hamas must have pre-empted the nature of retaliation that the IDF will resort to as a response to the former’s brutal attack on innocent Israeli civilians. There is always a likelihood of deeper, intricate, and extended tunnel infrastructure that Hamas has to counter the IDF ground offensive. The tunnel war preparedness that Hamas has done is likely to trap the IDF once it starts the ground offence.
The story of tunnels goes back to 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza. This vacuum led to the rise of the Hamas there. In addition to its various modes of surprising the IDF through unpredictable attacks, it has developed tunnel modalities to make the war with Israel more lethal. It is quite difficult to trace underground preparation for war and surprising attacks. The surface movements and stockpile of weapons are easily detectable through satellite imaging. However, the complex operations that go underneath are difficult to determine and present a proportionate defence. Hamas has acquired sophisticated tunnel technology that operates quietly and faster as deep as 50 meters beneath the Earth’s surface. It makes no vibrations on the surface to assume and assess the digging process in operation underneath. Israel could make sense of this tunnel activity in Gaza as early as 2000. Smuggling of weapons and goods and precise targeting of the IDF outposts in Gaza between 2001 and 2004 were seen to have acquired consistency. It happened stealthily until 2004.
But with the IDF withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the tunnelling activities exponentially increased as Hamas could see the success of this hybrid and asymmetric war. The 2007 coup positioned Hamas at the helm to determine the Gaza affairs directly. The same year also witnessed the Israeli defence forces’ preparedness in terms of installing an Iron dome system to prevent ariel attacks from Hamas. The security barrier that Israel established to prevent terrorist attacks after the withdrawal from Gaza was infiltrated by Hamas through its complex subterranean network system. In June 2006, Hamas used its tunnel infrastructure to attack the IDF outpost inside Israel, killing and injuring the IDF soldiers and successfully abducting Sergeant Gilad Shalit. Hamas subsequently played hostage politics, imprisoned Gilad Shalit, and demanded 1027 Palestinian prisoners to be released in exchange for one Israeli soldier. It took five years but the politics of Hamas clicked and the release of 1027 Palestinian prisoners gave Hamas strategic and geopolitical confidence.
Its guerrilla warfare saw no limit thereafter. It started acquiring missile capabilities with the Iranian and Syrian partnership. The number of missiles it sends to Israel is quite disproportionate in number and they have often overwhelmed the defence and retaliation capacity of the iron dome technology.
The final arsenal that Hamas finds is in the form of tunnel war which has given it the required success. The deception embedded in this war has given Hamas the necessary encouragement to expand it. This brings more difficulty for the IDF to get mired in the Hamas’ labyrinth of terror. In 2013, a tunnel was detected that connected Gaza with the Israeli community of Ein Hashlosha. Not only this, there are several tunnels that Hamas has built into the Israeli territory to wreak more havoc. It engages the IDF in the aerial war with thousands of rockets and missiles but operates underneath through tunnels to attack wherever possible. Tunnels have been used to carry out the abduction of Israelis and later to play the politics of exchange of disproportionate numbers.
Following the footsteps of Hamas, Hezbollah used tunnel tactics in its operation ‘Conquering the Galilee’ in August 2012 to make surprise attacks and capture villages and IDF outposts in the Israeli territory violating its sovereignty and the internationally recognised Blue Line. Hezbollah used its elite Radwan unit to inflict more trouble on Israel. Therefore, tunnels have proven to be a fitting method for engaging in war with Israel. Against this background, IDF’s Operation Northern Shield in December 2018 was a much-needed response to stop subterranean network building to protect its territory from infiltration through tunnelling. Israel’s adversaries have chosen deceptive and lethal means to attack which slow the deterrence or counter-offensive measures.
This war has exacerbated the Palestine-Israel conflict causing human catastrophe. Civilian casualties from both sides are a major cause of concern. But what can be done about it? Will IDF stop anytime soon? Will Hamas accept the two-state solution? The Palestinians are caught in the crossfire between Hamas and IDF. The Hamas-Israel conflict will not lead to any solution. It will be a nightmare, both for the Palestinians and Israelis.
Jajati K Pattnaik is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Chandan K. Panda is an Assistant Professor at Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Itanagar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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