The Israeli military brought journalists on Thursday to film a 2-kilometer terror tunnel dug by Gaza Strip-based terrorists under the enclave's border with Israel. The IDF said it was putting the construction on display to show the continuing threat Israel faces from Gaza.
The Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for building the tunnel, saying it had planned to use it to attack Israel in the next armed confrontation.
The tunnel was lined with concrete slabs. It was discovered about 120 meters (390 feet) inside Israel, near Kibbutz Kissufim, and runs about six meters (20 feet) deep below ground, the IDF said.
"The tunnel that we see here is one of three tunnels that have been destroyed over the last two months," military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said. "The threat has not passed and the terror from Hamas has not passed."
Massive earthworks and mounds of sandy soil line the Israel-Gaza border as the Israeli military forges ahead with an ambitious subterranean barrier to detect and prevent terror tunnels from reaching southern Israel from the Palestinian enclave.
Israel has made uncovering the tunnels from Gaza a priority and according to Conricus, the technology used in the project is groundbreaking.
"The message to Hamas is that we now have this system which can detect and destroy terror tunnels that violate Israeli sovereignty," he said, adding that the barrier being constructed "provides a significant challenge for anyone tunneling below."
The countertunnel barrier runs hundreds of feet below ground, is studded with cutting-edge sensors and topped by a 26-foot metal fence. Its construction is estimated at $700 million and the IDF projects its completion by mid-2019.
Thus far, crews working around the clock have completed 4 km (2.5 miles) of the planned 64-km (40-mile) border barrier. The exact nature of the technology the barrier sports remains classified.
'Tunnel enterprise is useless'
"Hamas is rapidly understanding that keeping up the tunnel enterprise is useless," a senior officer at the IDF Southern Command told reporters Thursday.
"Still, until we finish the barrier, nothing is hermetically sealed. After the barrier is completed we'll be able to say that we have thwarted all the tunnels breaching Israeli soil and it will be very difficult and complex to dig new ones."
He further noted that the underground barrier "will set in place an advanced system that will identify who is digging tunnels and will allow us to take out time while investigating it."
The military stressed that the three terror tunnels destroyed over recent months were all detected in areas where the barrier has yet to be set up, saying they were detected using an array of advanced technologies.
This, together with the fact that Hamas faces a complex military, strategic, diplomatic and economic reality, could prompt the terrorist group to divert resources previously dedicated to tunnel-digging to the development of other offensive capabilities, such as drones and precision rockets, the official said.
Thus far, Hamas has not tried to disrupt construction, and giant earth berms protect workers from spying eyes and small arms fire.
A senior Israeli military official said that while neither side is interested in a new round of violence, minor incidents along the border had the potential to snowball into a larger conflict quickly.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said the group would find a way around the underground wall.
"Our people have proved that they are always capable of finding means and mechanisms to overcome all measures by the [Israeli] occupation. Our people have many ways to defend themselves," he said, without elaborating.
