Feature: As Israel zeros in on Hamas new threat, is war on the horizon?

by Keren Setton

JERUSALEM, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Israel-Gaza border looks like a construction site. Tractors plowing, sand piled up, cranes in the air ... with the sun shining, the underground threat seems fictional.

Since 2014, when Israel began an offensive against the Hamas-run territory as a result of the discovery of an underground tunnel, it was clear that the tunnels are a groundbreaking weapon at the hands of the militant organization.

The Gaza Strip has been under a strict blockade since 2007, when Hamas violently took over the territory from the hands of the more moderate Fatah party led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. For years, tunnels between the territory and Egypt were used to smuggle in goods and weapons.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008, the last one in 2014. During that war, there were several attacks through tunnels initiated by Palestinian militants which resulted in the deaths of Israeli soldiers.

For Israel, the threat of tunnels reaching civilians on the border was almost a crippling one.

According to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 32 such attack tunnels were destroyed during the war.

It then became a national priority to find the technology and capabilities that will enable early detection of the tunnels.

"The tunnels have the potential of leading to an escalation that will force Israel to initiate an offensive against Gaza and therefore, the government is trying to avoid this," Shaul Arieli, a former Israeli military brigade commander in the Gaza Strip, told Xinhua.

The struggle between Israel and Hamas feeds itself continuously as one side comes up with a weapon, the other invents a counter measure. It is a lethal game with a deadly price.

For years the conflict was characterized by rocket fire into Israeli territory and subsequent Israeli response. The short to medium range missiles, often improvised from sewage pipes but later improved by weapons smuggled in from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, caused severe disruption to the daily lives of Israelis living on the border.

For Gazans not involved in fighting, the daily barrages of Israeli military were detrimental to their efforts to get rid of lasting hardship.

Israel then came up with the Iron Dome, a defense system designed to intercept short and medium range rockets.

Then the game changed.

While militant groups continued firing rockets into Israel, the large majority of them were intercepted before hitting civilian targets, rendering the weapon almost futile.

And there came the tunnels.

So now, on the Gaza border lies a vast construction site with cement mixers and heavy machinery. Workers are laboring and results are beginning to show.

"We are constructing an underground barrier ... we are putting a lot of effort into having intelligence and technological capabilities to detect these terror tunnels. That is designed to be able to tell Hamas that they will not cross into Israel and will not have the ability to terrorize Israeli civilians or abduct Israeli civilians from Israel into Gaza as we have seen and as we know the Hamas is trying to do," said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus of the IDF, while touring the barrier site.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, was quoted as saying that Hamas has proved to be capable of finding means and mechanisms to overcome all measures by the (Israeli) occupation.

"This is the process in which each side tries to surprise the other," says Arieli. "When a proper relation does not exist, this is the natural process that occurs all the time."

Costing over half a billion U.S. dollars, the investment is apparently paying off for now. In recent months, three tunnels which the IDF says were designed as attack tunnels by militants, were destroyed.

One such tunnel, destroyed late last year, was displayed by the Israeli military to journalists a few days ago.

"The situation is that we have a new tool set which makes it very difficult, perhaps even impossible, for Hamas to penetrate into Israel using these terror tunnels," Conricus said.

A senior Israeli officer at the site said the wall being constructed is "very deep" without going into specific details. Steel cages dot the area, then are welded together and used as part of the barrier.

"For each area, for each enemy, we find a specific solution that is needed," Conricus said.

Hamas is quickly finding itself in a corner. After investing significant funds and efforts, the tunnels are gradually being exposed. Fatah is also being cornered, deeply disenchanted by the U.S. leadership which it feels is no longer an honest broker in the conflict.

With both Palestinian factions feeling this way, potential for conflict with Israel increases.

"Both Fatah and Hamas have no intention to escalate the situation with Israel at this point ... but there is no doubt that there is unrest and it can erupt," said Arieli.

In its lackluster response to the destruction of tunnels so far, Hamas is indeed signaling it is not interested in a confrontation, just yet. Other than denunciations and random rocket fire, the militant organization has not forcefully responded.

In the past, isolated border incidents led to full-scale armed conflict between Hamas and Israel, and the same can apply to the Palestinian territories in the West Bank.

While no one is interested in escalation right now, neither side is fully in control of events. Enditem