Tunnels Blunder – One of the Biggest Ever Mistakes

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This is nothing less than one of the biggest blunders in the history of the Israeli defense establishment. Right under the nose of the IDF in Gaza , Hamas has formed many underground attack tunnels.

Residents of the Gaza vicinity have heard the sounds of shoveling and voices, so says intelligence information.

One man who has been claiming this for a long time is geologist Yossi Langotsky. Colonel (Ret.) Langotsky, who is now known  as the father of the Tamar and Dalit gas discoveries, formerly established the Special Operations Branch of Military Intelligence and the control unit technology’s operational wing. There, he won two Israel Security awards –both personal and for his unit for developments he led.

“This was a big mistake not to employ the intelligence to discover it, “says Langotsky.  Three times he contacted the Defense Ministry to help find a solution – and three times those bodies had failed to heed help and advice from the Geophysical Institute – which they offered to volunteer.

Langotsky says that back in the 90’s the Geophysical Institute sought to tap their experience in mapping sub-spaces underground for finding a solution to expose tunnels. One such development presented to  the Ministry of Defense in 2001 was a seismic underground enclosure that went deep in the ground equipped with sensors sensitive to trace fluctuations in the sub surface.

According to the Geophysical  Institute, they conducted an experiment in Kerem Shalom – not far from where the Hamas tunnel was exposed in recent days- there they managed to isolate background noise, and trace the path of the tunnel mining.

But the Defense Ministry did not rush to adopt the solution presented to them, preferring to give the development to a private company which failed to bring a solution.

In 2004 Langotsky was appointed adviser to former Chief of Staff Moshe (Boogie) Ya’alon, on the subject of terror tunnels. In 2005 he issued a thick report on the subject, which strongly criticized the conduct of the Ministry.

But sadly Israel heard the cries of Langotsky and did nothing.
So here we are with dozens of tunnels dug beneath us and there they are ready to attack us from beneath the Gaza border communities.

This is without any doubt  one of the biggest blunders from the Ministry of Defense. But if people there are questioned, no one will be paying the price. Now after the soldiers have been killed by the use of underground tunnels, the country may invest the money in solving the problem. This is Israel.