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Demolition of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad Tunnel Inside Israel
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Maj.-Gen. (res.) Sami Turjeman - On Oct. 30, Israeli forces destroyed a tunnel infiltrating their territory, resulting in the deaths of several senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which operated the tunnel. Several Hamas members were killed as well. Neither PIJ nor Hamas in Gaza have responded by firing on Israel. This lack of armed action would have been inconceivable in the past. In 2014, Operation Protective Edge showed Gaza's leaders the costs of war. The Strip has not yet recovered from that conflict, in large part because the Hamas government's main focus is on reconstructing its military force and suppressing popular opposition to its rule. What can we learn from the incident? Hamas has not yet been able to regain its former military, civil, and political stature three years after the war. Both PIJ and Hamas seem to regard building extensive cross-border tunnel networks for the sake of launching raids on Israeli soil as critical components of their future warfare strategy. Yet the incident brings Palestinian terrorists to the uncomfortable realization that Israel has a tunnel-detection solution capable of eliminating a key part of their military strategy The writer, a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute, led the IDF Southern Command overseeing the 2014 Gaza war.