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The Enemy Below: The Gaza Tunnels
(Washington Post) Gerard DeGroot - If a target is well-fortified, like Israel, attackers have difficulty engaging it. By providing concealment up to the moment of engagement, tunnels are a labor-intensive but cheap alternative. During World War I, British miners placed 22 mines under German trenches at Messines. Nineteen of these were detonated on June 7, 1917, producing a blast that killed 10,000 German soldiers. In the Vietnam War, Viet Cong rebels would hide in vast tunnel complexes such as those at Cu Chi, which extended more than 200 miles and could house thousands of troops for long periods. The writer is a professor of history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.