Defense One Notes Israel’s Security Challenges

Israel is employing innovative methods to confront an increasingly complex security environment, according to a recent article in Defense One (“In Israel, Race to Safeguard Borders From Multi-Dimensional Threats,” Nov. 28, 2016). The report, by correspondent Barbara Opall-Rome, offered a detailed and informative look at Israeli strategy that is seldom noted by other news media outlets.

Opall-Rome highlighted that Israel continues to face the danger posed by Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip. During its 2014 war, Hamas employed underground tunnels to attack Israelis. The reporter pointed out that:

“Since then, Israel has fast-tracked prewar development plans for a number of technological solutions aimed at detecting, mapping and operating in the subterranean environment, spending about $200 million in the process. Earlier this year, through improved operational and technological methods — most of which remain classified — Israel discovered another two tunnels reaching into its territory from Gaza.”

The U.S. has been working with Israel to develop counter-tunnel technologies since 2008. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense received $40 million to expand the project. Israel is expected to fund an “an equal amount in cash or in kind,” Defense One said.

The joint program has benefits for both sides; an anonymous U.S. defense official told Opall-Rome that terror tunnels are a problem for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well.

The threats that Israel faces differ in nature. As a result, the Jewish state employs different strategies to confront them.

Israel employs border barriers in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip to deter terror attacks. On its northern border, Israel’s concerns extend past terror tunnels and include worries over “a full assault by Lebanese-based Hezbollah or its allies.” A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, told Defense One:

“Up north, we view the threat differently. The topography is completely different, so what we’ve done on the border with Lebanon, we’ve created artificial cliffs that create an extremely difficult terrain for forces to easily storm into a civilian community or a military base along the border.”

Lerner stated that, in addition to altering the terrain, the IDF has expanded surveillance capabilities and established quick reaction forces to immediately confront an attack. Additionally, the IDF has created an evacuation plan for the 22 civilian communities who are likely to come under direct threat from an attack by Hezbollah.

As CAMERA noted in a April 30, 2016 Times of Israel Op-Ed “Media Fails to Connect the Dots on Hezbollah’s Next War,” the media has often failed to note Hezbollah’s growing capabilities. The Iranian-funded, U.S.-designated terror group has—in violation of several U.N. resolutions requiring the group to be disarmed—an arsenal that includes drones and more than 120,00 missiles. The group calls for Israel’s destruction and intentionally targets Israeli civilians while using “human shields” as cover—a double war crime.

However, the media often fails to note Hezbollah’s aims and tactics.

Defense One’s report provided readers with important details about Israel’s security challenges and how the country is addressing them. The article by Barbara Opall-Rome can be found here.