Despite tunnel fever, it’s business as usual for IDF troops on the Gaza border
Detection system isn’t the game-changer trumpeted by politicians, expert says, and forces on the ground haven’t changed their battle plans against Hamas
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Soldiers on the southern Gaza border have not changed their mission or their outlook following the discovery of a Hamas attack tunnel penetrating deep into Israeli territory from the coastal enclave, an officer said.
Despite a renewed public focus on the Gaza Strip in light of the tunnel — found earlier this month and announced publicly on Monday — the facts on the ground have not changed, nor have there been any marked changes in the day-to-day security routine along the separation fence.
Notably, still-classified tunnel detection technology — which some in the government have touted as the only answer to the threat of subterranean attacks — has not affected the operational methods of the infantry troops on the ground.
“Gaza duty” today is more or less the same as Gaza duty in 2014 and 2012 and 2010, according to the officer, who serves there today and has been stationed there numerous times throughout the years.
The new, mysterious technology has not necessarily shifted the overall balance along the border, some experts have said. And practically no one believes that the threat from Hamas in Gaza has been neutralized.
Though there have not been any radical escalations recently, it would be wrong to conclude that the region is calm. “On the Gaza border, you don’t sleep so well at night,” the officer told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
“The next round is just a matter of time,” said the officer, who asked not to be named for security reasons.
Has anything actually changed?
In the days preceding and immediately following the announcement of the tunnel’s discovery, the army moved to reassure the public that it had everything under control, using attention-grabbing press briefings and speeches.
The prime minister, defense minister and other officials credited the discovery of the tunnel to a new, “unique” technology, trumpeting it as a dramatic shift in the power dynamic on the border. On Wednesday, Likud MK Miki Zohar declared during a conference on the threat of the tunnels in Sderot that this new technology was “the only reason” the tunnel had been found.
In response, Col. (res.) Yossi Langotzky, who previously served as adviser to the IDF chief of staff on the threat of tunnels, called Zohar “an idiot.”
“There is no physical barrier that cannot be overcome,” Langotzky said during the conference.
“If you build a system that can detect a tunnel up to 40 meters (130 feet) deep, [Hamas] will build a tunnel below 40 meters,” he told The Times of Israel on the sidelines of the conference.
For years, Langotzky has been something of a Cassandra, foreseeing the tunnel threat and warning the relevant bodies, but unheeded at every turn. To this day, he said, he remains persona non grata at the Defense Ministry.
The tall, imposing Langotzky said that without an independent, dedicated government body responsible for the tunnel threats emanating from both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel will remain at risk of attack.
“You want to hear my prediction? Until there’s a real disaster, nothing is going to be done about the threat of tunnels,” he said.
Although the secret technology is said to have discovered an attack tunnel in Israel, Langotzky brushed it off as an ultimately ineffectual stopgap measure. “If I were a Gaza border resident, I wouldn’t sleep well at night,” he said at the conference, which was attended by Israelis who live in that area.
For its part, the army has downplayed the new technology, insisting the tunnel was located using a combination of means, including intelligence and “boots on the ground.”
A few days before the tunnel was revealed to the public, a senior military official disclosed Israel’s current security assessments of Hamas in Gaza. Yes, Hamas is rebuilding its arsenal, the official told reporters last week. But no, it’s not yet prepared nor interested at this point in an imminent conflict.
However, the official stressed, Israel is prepared, with a thorough battle strategy and detailed intelligence. “We have a plan to overwhelm the military branch of Hamas,” he said.
During the conference in Sderot, the head of the Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir, made some waves in the Hebrew media when he discussed the existence of plans to evacuate communities on the Gaza border in the event of a war.
To the officer on the border, those reports were something of a shock: Not because he was unaware of those battle and evacuation plans — far from it — but because others were surprised that Israel does have them.
“You always have a plan that says what to do if there’s a war here, what to do if there’s a war there,” he said.
Being prepared for anything is the hallmark of a good warrior, the officer said, looking in the direction of Gaza. “Even as we’re speaking, I’m thinking to myself, ‘What happens if someone comes from over there? What happens if a mortar falls?'”
‘Like a coiled spring’
For the past six months, soldiers from the infantry Golani Brigade have been stationed along the southern section of the Gaza border.
The soldiers, the “boots on the ground,” are still actively searching for tunnels. “That’s not even a secret; the other side comes and takes pictures,” the officer said.
In addition, violent protests near the fence — which can include “800 to 1,000 people,” occasional sniper fire on army troops and vehicles, and attempts by individuals to breach the fence and infiltrate Israel — are what occupy the troops on a regular basis.
The terror attacks and unrest emanating from the West Bank seem to have had a greater impact on the local population than the discovery of the tunnel this month, the officer said.
The Gaza border was once Israel’s most volatile, but it has cooled since the 2014 war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge. This past year was the calmest of the decade there, in terms of rocket fire and incidents along the fence.
Hamas took a serious hit in the 2014 war, and though it has every intention of renewing its conflict with Israel eventually, for now it “has an interest in preserving the peace,” the officer said.
Calm, however, can be deceiving, and the soldiers stationed there must be constantly prepared for any eventuality.
“Our motto is: Be like a coiled spring,” the officer said. “And if we ever have to hit back, we’ll hit back with force.”
For soldiers, serving on the Gaza border is “entirely different” from serving in the West Bank, in terms of both tactics and psychology, he said.
“In the West Bank, everything is mixed together. Everything has a lot of meaning, even just one guy at a bus stop. Here, there’s a fence,” he said. On one side is Israel, on the other Gaza.
There is a certain “simplicity” to that dynamic, which makes it an easier place to serve, he said.
It does, however, come with its own challenges. The powder keg nature of Gaza places enormous responsibility on the shoulders of 18- and 19-year-old soldiers, who must handle incidents along the border with restraint and maturity — two things for which teenagers are not particularly renowned.
If the IDF responded with a heavy hand to every minor incident along the border, Israel would rapidly find itself in yet another conflict with Hamas in Gaza. But at the same time, attacks on Israeli sovereignty cannot simply be ignored.
It is a difficult balance to strike. There is a need for soldiers on the border who are ready to react when a demonstration turns violent, but not overreact and potentially spark a more significant incident. To mitigate that issue, “we have very clear rules of engagement,” the officer said.
Avoiding children, aiming at the legs instead of the torso, and firing only at the “central instigators” — such policies allow the army to control the riots without escalating tensions. But even so, he said, “the Palestinian media will report someone died when we have proof that they were only injured.”
Though the issue has come back into the public discourse in full force, for the soldiers involved, it’s business as usual.
“I’m married with three kids and I’m here alone for the Passover Seder,” the officer said. “Doesn’t that say something?”
