FOA News – Israeli engineering special forces are specially trained for the task of finding and penetrating Hamas’s dangerous tunnel system in the Gaza Strip, with the goal of hunting down and eliminating this organization’s fighters.
Israeli soldiers train the tunnel. Photo: IDF.
On the one hand, the Israeli army (IDF) bombed Gaza continuously for weeks in response to the attack by the Islamic armed force Hamas; On the other hand, the IDF urgently prepares an underground military network to hunt down and destroy Hamas.
The elite combat engineering unit mentioned above is named Yahalom. They have carefully prepared for close combat with Hamas in the deep maze of underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip.
Specifically, the Yahalom unit is trained to explore and discover about 482km of tunnels that Hamas uses to transport goods for military and strategic purposes. For many years, Hamas has relied on this tunnel system to evade Israeli surveillance and move weapons such as rockets to carry out surprise attacks on Israel, according to the IDF. Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 is also said to be based on exploiting this tunnel system. Israeli officials themselves have admitted that both the Israeli military and intelligence systems were surprised by that unprecedented attack by Hamas.
Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “We will destroy our enemies both on the ground and underground.”
The challenge that Yahalom’s unit faces is to find and destroy targets in deep underground darkness. Hamas can use tunnels to suddenly attack Israel, while Israel’s advanced technology can only be effective on the ground and become useless deep underground.
John Spencer, who toured Yahalom’s training in Israel, said: Hamas fighters could use that same tunnel system to evade capture and attack by Israeli forces.
Spencer, a veteran and current chair of urban warfare at the Modern War Institute, told the Daily Beast: Tunnels are “a very effective way to hide capabilities, protect capabilities and Use asymmetric means, such as suddenly appearing, attacking, then quickly going underground to preserve your forces. According to Spencer, this is the main strategy of Hamas.
Colonel Yaron Beit-On – commander of the Yahalom unit in 2016, shared: “The main challenge in underground combat is that the enemy has no signs above ground. The enemy’s hiding and gathering intelligence is very complicated and difficult.”
Lieutenant Hezi (Israel) said in 2016: This mission is difficult, it is not easy for Israeli soldiers to rehearse according to the curriculum. Each tunnel creates its own challenges and potential unexpected dangers.
Hezi continued: “No two tunnels are identical. The first person to enter the tunnel will have to improvise… When you go inside one of these tunnels, you will see how great the threat we face is.
To reduce the risk to soldiers in the Yahalom unit, in recent years, the IDF has deployed robots to hunt down Hamas fighters as well as booby traps.
In addition, Yahalom soldiers are also equipped with their own clothes to help them breathe and see relatively easily in the intricate network of tunnels.
US Army Lieutenant General Mark Schwartz added that Israeli soldiers must also prepare to cope with poison gas attacks.
As Israel’s goal is to eliminate Hamas, the pressure on the Yahalom unit is unprecedented.
In previous military campaigns, Israel tried to locate and eliminate Hamas tunnels. At that time, Israeli forces planted mines to destroy the Hamas tunnel. But there are still many other Hamas tunnels. Of the approximately 400km of tunnels that Hamas owns, Israel says they have only destroyed 60 tunnels. And after Israel destroyed some tunnels, Hamas appeared to build many more.
This time the Israeli special forces’ mission was much more difficult because Hamas took more than 200 hostages and hid the victims in the tunnel system. Special forces soldiers must both find and destroy Hamas fighters and ensure the safety of the hostages.
US officials admitted that Hamas could rotate the hostages’ positions in the maze of tunnels to make it difficult for Israel’s search efforts.
Prime Minister Netanyahu personally visited the Yahalom unit and encouraged the force: “We are facing the next stage. You were part of that period, part of the vanguard. We have a mission to smash Hamas. We count on you, the people of Israel count on you, I am proud of you.”
The IDF has focused heavily on training the Yahalom unit in tunnel warfare. Just one year after Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the IDF announced it would expand the size of the unit.
In addition, Spencer said, this task force has learned extensively about Hamas’s tunnel system.
The IDF announced that last year (2022), some Yahalom soldiers conducted training in many aspects, from urban combat, coordination with combat helicopters, emergency evacuation, intelligence and logistics.
The Yahalom unit is divided into a number of specialized companies, such as the Samur (Weasel) company specializing in entering, clearing and eliminating tunnels; Sayfur company specializes in using unconventional weapons; Yael company focused on raiding missions.
In the past, these soldiers went through 9 months of special forces training and many other special subjects.
However, Spencer warned that the situation on the ground with Hamas may have changed in recent years, causing Israeli soldiers to still encounter many surprises. Hamas is likely to continue digging new tunnels.
Mr. Schwartz said that the appearance and size of the Yahalom unit is unknown, but it is possible that this unit is not very large due to its intensive level of training.
Spencer warned that the IDF could run out of elite soldiers in the event of prolonged fighting. And when that scenario happens, he said, Israel will have to send soldiers who are not properly trained into the tunnel.
There are many signs that the upcoming war between Israel and Hamas will last a long time. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant admitted that this war could last for many months.
Sources close to Yahalom’s operations appear to expect their campaign to last at least through winter. Funds have been sought to purchase winter clothing for this unit.
