ANALYSIS – As I recommended much earlier. Back on Nov. 2 in my PDB (Paul's Daily Brief), I suggested that Israel flood the Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza, adding that: “Bombing mostly works—at a cost—but there's a better way. Flood them with seawater from the adjacent Mediterranean.”
I did receive some pushback at the time by some who initially believed it was unrealistic or impractical. The Israelis have identified about 800 tunnels so far, though the network is bigger than that, often touted as consisting of over 300 miles of tunnels.
But, now it seems that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) think it's a “good idea” and may be preparing to do just that. (RELATED: Israeli Expands Offensive Against Hamas Terrorists In Gaza)
Images and video released by the IDF show scores of Israeli soldiers setting up black pipes on the beaches of Gaza and IDF troops working on the pipes while underground.
I continued my earlier post by noting that “Egypt flooded thirty-seven cross-border tunnels in southern Gaza back in 2015 in what stands as a practical proof of concept in this location.”
As I said then: “Flooding would force the terrorists above ground where they can more easily be engaged, dramatically reduce the Israeli and civilian Gazan casualties and also resolve the problem of the tunnels that are too deep to destroy through bombing.” (RELATED: Beyond F***ed Up: Dem's Attempt To Downplay Hamas' Sexual Violence Leaves DC Gobsmacked)
Fighting in these tunnels despite the IDF's technology and training would still be tough going and costly to Israeli troops, as I described in my Nov. 17 piece “High-Tech Israeli ‘Weasels' Go Underground To Battle Hamas.”
My suggestions weren't my own but based on a very insightful and thorough analysis by Jeff Goodson, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer. In 29 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he worked on the ground in 49 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, including the Gaza Strip.
He explained in detail how this flooding could be accomplished. And the IDF appears to have been listening.
The Wall Street Journal reports that:
Israel has assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas's vast network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, a tactic that could destroy the tunnels and drive the fighters from their underground refuge but also threaten Gaza's water supply, U.S. officials said.
The Israel Defense Forces finished assembling large seawater pumps roughly one mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp around the middle of last month. Each of at least five pumps can draw water from the Mediterranean Sea and move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour into the tunnels, flooding them within weeks.
Israel first informed the U.S. of the option early last month, prompting a discussion weighing its feasibility and effect on the environment against the military value of disabling the tunnels, officials said.
U.S. officials said they didn't know how close the Israeli government was to carrying out the plan. Israel hasn't made a final decision to move ahead, nor has it ruled the plan out, officials said.
According to the WSJ: “Sentiment inside the U.S. [government] was mixed.”
There are always the nervous nellies and naysayers and those who privately express concern about the plan, while others said the U.S. totally supports the disabling of the tunnels.
Some have expressed concern about how flooding might impact the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. It's also unclear if Israeli forces would flood the tunnels before the release or rescue of the remaining Israeli hostages, who are likely being held in some of those same tunnels. (RELATED: Hamas Terrorists Used ‘Jihad Drug' When They Mass Murdered Israelis)
However, as Goodson noted in his analysis, the speed of flooding can be controlled and would certainly allow hostages and terrorists alike time to escape. The point is to destroy the terrorists' underground lairs, not to drown anyone. Though, I might add, drowning barbarian terrorists shouldn't be a concern either.
Goodson explained that the flooding can slow or fast, depending on the need:
Flooding doesn't have to be slow. A six-by-five-foot tunnel that runs 300 miles is a huge volume to fill, but how fast it fills depends on how fast the water is pumped. Rough calculations indicate that if a single pipe were used for each of eleven tunnels, with each pipe pumping at a very conservative 100 gallons per minute, it would take about seven and a half months for all eleven tunnel networks to fill.
Pumping water at ten times that rate, however, is routinely done today everywhere from wastewater treatment plants to oil field operations. Also, the tunnels wouldn't have to be filled to capacity to generate the desired effect. The effect would begin as soon as water started to flow; by the time a tunnel has two or three feet of water it would be effectively unusable.
Meanwhile, one person familiar with the plan noted to the WSJ that: “We are not sure how successful pumping will be since nobody knows the details of the tunnels and the ground around them.
“It's impossible to know if that will be effective because we don't know how seawater will drain in tunnels no one has been in before.”
Well, all I can say is, there is only one way to find out. Let the flooding begin.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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