Engineering corps: 'No 100-percent solution' to tunnels
The IDF's Weapons Systems and Infrastructure Development Authority (WSIDA) has received more than 100 suggestions on coping with the tunnels in the Gaza Strip in recent years. However, thus far it has failed to come up with an adequate solution.
The successful terror attack near Kerem Shalom Sunday triggered criticism from civilians and former military personnel against WSIDA and the defense establishment.
Dr. Vladimir Frid developed the V-3 system for detecting underground spaces - that is, tunnels - with former colleagues from Ben-Gurion University. After hearing how the terrorists reached the IDF outpost, he was sick with anger. "I felt I was living in a country in which the establishment that is supposed to protect our soldiers and citizens treats them with contempt," he said yesterday.
"We checked the system already several years ago in the Gaza Strip, and exposed three tunnels," he said.
Frid presented his system to WSIDA, but "they decided to dismiss" it. "About a year ago, I met with the authority and engineering officers. I understood that it wasn't important to them. Today they have to dig there, and we're in the 21st century. The system is relatively cheap for a Merkava tank, and does not require a large investment to make it operative," he said.
The Geophysics Institute, Lod, proposed the Ben Ari system to WSIDA. People at the institute refused to talk about the system, saying it is still being considered by the authority. But WSIDA sources said it was an unripe idea, a theory still being examined.
Former GOC southern command Brigadier Zvika Fogel examined some of the ideas himself.
"All kinds of seismographic and electric methods were proposed to indicate underground changes," he said. "We examined them, and I ruled them out because 70 percent of the indications they gave were incorrect. Each alert would send us running, digging, blowing up explosives to collapse tunnels that may have been in the area."
Today the ground forces use methods that provide a partial solution. They carry out controlled explosions to cause the collapse of suspected tunnels, utilize a sensory system that the IDF says provides reliable indications, and operate a trencher that can dig rapidly and deeply to expose a tunnel.
However, a senior IDF officer said yesterday that the main problem is detecting the tunnels, and only intelligence can solve that issue.
"Like in every battle, there is no 100 percent solution. Some interested parties who call themselves experts are trying to portray what happened on Sunday as a failure, to promote some idea they developed," an engineering corps officer said.
Fogel said yesterday that since the latest redeployment along the Gaza Envelope - the communities along the Gaza Strip - the IDF has been forced to ignore the tunnels, and devote most of its attention to more acute issues such as Qassam fire and attempts at attacks, penetration or the laying of explosives. "The enemy's acts have altered the IDF's order of priorities," he said.
This statement angered a senior officer, who dismissed them out of hand. "Perhaps the media had forgotten the tunnel threat, but it occupies us every day, and we deal with it constantly," he said.
Sources in the IDF and defense establishment say that every proposal is examined with due seriousness, sometimes without considering financial implications. A defense source described the attempts to solve the problem as "long-distance running." "R&D is a matter for many years," he said.
Although there is no absolute solution to the threat, Israel's situation is better than that of other countries, defense sources said. In February this year, representatives from WSIDA and the Geophysics Institute took part in a workshop on this topic in the United States. The solutions raised there were also limited, the sources said.
