AggieUSMC said:

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aggie93 said:

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Israel should bomb the wall between Egypt and the West Bank.

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You need a geography lesson

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will25u said:

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Don't need to be a policing force.

BREAKING: The US and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troops if Israeli forces succeed in ousting Hamas, per Bloomberg.

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) October 31, 2023

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nortex97 said:

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Here is a very good article over at RCD about the prospect/utility/practicality of rapidly flooding the tunnels.

Quote:

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The Gaza tunnel system, mostly constructed over the last forty years, provides Hamas with offensive access to Israel. It also constitutes the terrorist organization's most formidable defensive redoubt. The tunnels present by far the most difficult logistical problem for Israel in eliminating enemy targets. Open-source maps show at least eleven independent tunnel networks, some nearly adjacent to the sea. The number of independent networks, however, could far exceed that. Hamas claims that the total length of the tunnels is about three hundred miles.

The geography of Gaza argues strongly for the stratagem of flooding the tunnels. It would force the enemy above ground where they can more easily be destroyed, dramatically reduce the Israeli casualties required to accomplish that task and resolve the problem of dealing with parts of the tunnels that are too deep to destroy through bombing. Most importantly, flooding is a permanent or near-permanent solution to the Gaza tunnel problem. Once accomplished, pumping them out enough to be usable again would be both extremely costly andespecially in conjunction with bombingexceptionally difficult. The timing of executing a flooding strategy is flexible; some could be flooded now, others later, and still others once they're discovered.

The engineering is straightforward. 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. Seawater from the Mediterranean would be pumped directly into the tunnel openings through short pipelines. While there's little hydrological head, there is also little topographical relief to deal with in laying the pipe. Large volumes of water are pumped long distances every day, and Israeli water technology is world class.

The shortest and most direct route to the tunnel entrances would be directly from the Mediterranean. This would require kinetic clearing of the construction sites and holding them for the duration of the operation to protect the temporary water transmission lines. The distance that would need to be cleared and held could be minimized on the northernmost and eastern tunnels by running a trunk line through adjacent Israeli territory and feeding water distribution lines to the tunnel entrances off that.
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.

The collateral damage to infrastructure should be minimal. The distances are short, the diameter of the required pipe is small, and the pipelines would run very close to the surface. As with the Egyptian tunnel operations, the impact of flooding on groundwater salinization would no doubt be raised. The extent of saltwater leakage through the tunnels into local groundwater would depend on the depth and construction of the tunnels and the configuration of the local aquifer. Gaza's shallow aquifer is already over-depleted, however, and ninety-five percent of its groundwater was considered unfit for public consumption as far back as 2017. The reason is that it's extensively contaminated with chemicals and sewage, as well as saltwater intrusion from the Mediterranean due to a long history of over pumping. Because of that, Gaza relies heavily on desalinization for potable water.

In the short term, think of flooding Gaza's tunnels as humanitarian assistance. By eliminating the need to keep bombing them, flooding would reduce civilian casualties and other collateral damage. In the long term, think of denying Hamas access to the tunnels as an A2AD stratagem. At the end of the war, there can be no complete destruction of Hamas, nor long-term peace out of Gaza, unless and until the Gaza tunnels are taken out.

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Quote:

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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.

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LMCane said:

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I love to see strategy and tactics on the battlefield

however, author and many on here are forgetting one thing:

THE INNOCENT HOSTAGES OF HAMAS ARE IN THOSE TUNNELS

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IDF releases new footage of ground forces operating in the Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/mXQrHNaQXL

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 1, 2023

Dashcam footage shows a rocket impact on the Route 4 highway near Ashdod yesterday. Three people were lightly hurt. pic.twitter.com/u7m950Hy8L

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) November 1, 2023

Hogties said:

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Mowdy Ag said:

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LMCane said:

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I love to see strategy and tactics on the battlefield

however, author and many on here are forgetting one thing:

THE INNOCENT HOSTAGES OF HAMAS ARE IN THOSE TUNNELS

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What is the cost of the alternative?

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Exactly. It's a pipe dream to think that the hostages will be rescued in any large numbers. If people don't think there is a terrorist sitting with any remaining hostages with orders to kill them all at the first sign of trouble then people are delusional. The hostages are dead already, even if they are still breathing today.

And yeah, how many IDF special forces will die trying to go through the heavily defended tunnels just to "rescue" a warm corpse? That's the alternative to flooding the tunnels, or blowing every entrance you can find, or filling the tunnels with that foam and sealing the tunnels.

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boulderaggie said:

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I think it's more like 500 trapped in Gaza - i could be wrong, tho. Not sure about actual hostages held by Hamas

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