New technology to trace Gaza’s underground tunnels

JERUSALEM: A year after Hamas used cross-border tunnels to launch deadly attacks during the Gaza war, Israel is testing new techniques to detect the hidden passages as a top priority, sources say, but has yet to announce the system as fully operational.

Beyond standard military secrecy, the reluctance to trumpet the measures may be to mask lingering shortfalls in the system and avoid giving Israelis a false sense of security as they return to their homes near the Gaza Strip that were abandoned during the war.

Israel has been testing half a dozen technologies for spotting movement or cavities below ground, or the resulting disruption of the earth above, using dummy tunnels in a desert base in south- ern Israel, security sources said.

Foreign geologists and surveillance experts have been helping, the sources said, declining to give more details.

The anti-tunnel system is a top priority for Israel’s Defence Ministry, said one security source involved in the project, adding: “It’s working, but it still isn’t 100 percent.”

Full coverage of the sandy, 65km border is a tall order, however. For now, equipment can be seen, half-buried, half-exposed, dotted along stretches of the fortified frontier.

Palestinians have long used tunnels under the border with Egypt to subvert the blockade imposed on the Gaza enclave and import scarce goods as well as weapons. – Reuters