IDF official warns terror tunnels under northern border pose ‘major threat’

Terror tunnels will play a major part in the next armed conflict on Israel’s northern and southern border, making them a serious threat the IDF is gearing up to counter, a senior military official said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, who heads the military’s counter-tunnel warfare development efforts, further said that some of the tactics already developed for underground warfare will soon become obsolete.

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Edelstein was speaking at a symposium titled “Subterranean Challenges in War and Peace,” hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in collaboration with the United States Military Academy of West Point and the US Embassy in Israel.

“There is a need to change many of the basic assumptions. The enemy wants to force us to operate above and below ground at the same time, in order to exhaust us and lead to further attacks against civilians,” he said.

Edelstein noted that with respect to urban warfare, buildings that have been cleared of terrorists could still pose a risk due to tunnels.

“If in the past there was the question of whether we could counter the terror tunnels without entering them – we won’t have this privilege in the future. There is a 100% chance that we will face the challenge of the tunnels in Gaza and in Lebanon.”

He further noted that the threat posed by terror tunnels in the northern sector is unequivocal.

“Every village has tunnels,” he said, adding that the IDF is sparing no effort to meet this challenge.

“Tunnel warfare reduced nearly all the advantaged you have when fighting above ground to almost zero, be it with respect to firepower, engaging the enemy, and the troops’ movement,” he explained.
Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein (Photo: JINI/Ancho Gosh)
“One of the problems is that we don’t have the intelligence capability to discern the location of each and every tunnel. No one unit can do handle locating a tunnel and neutralize it – we need an entire strategic lineup for that,” he said.

Satellite images released last week by ImageSat International showed that construction of an underground storage tunnel for missiles is underway at a Shiite militia base in northeastern Syria that was built by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

According to the images, the tunnel is being dug near a crossing over the Syria-Iraq border.

The Imam Ali base, where the tunnel is under construction, is the crown jewel of Iran’s presence in Syria.

It allows access to a land corridor that extends from Iraq to Iran, eliminating the need for IRGC personnel to maintain air bases, which are vulnerable to Israeli strikes.

The tunnel exposed on Tuesday proves that the base is designed to accommodate advanced weapon systems that the Iranians could use in a future conflict with Israel.