The ‘SPONGE bomb’ Israel are hoping to use to disable Hamas tunnels: New gadget expands and hardens, filling underground passageways
- Israeli forces can trap Hamas in tunnels using innovative new ‘sponge bombs’
Israeli forces could be planning to disable Hamas tunnels and trap the terrorists underground using innovative ‘sponge bombs’.
How to deal with hidden fighters hiding in the numerous tunnels beneath Gaza will be one of the key concerns for the Israel Defense Force (IDF) as they begin their long-promised ground offensive in the besieged city.
And according to some reports, a secret new weapon called the “sponge bomb” could be deployed for the first time.
The chemical compound is based on a liquid emulsion and can be dropped into a tunnel before it rapidly expands and hardens, potentially trapping attackers in alleys or securing safe routes for Israeli commandos while searching for hostages.
How Israeli sponge bombs could be used to trap Hamas terrorists in underground tunnels
How to deal with hidden fighters hiding in the numerous tunnels beneath Gaza will be one of the key concerns for the Israel Defense Force (IDF) as they begin their long-promised ground offensive in the besieged city.
Hamas terrorists are in tunnels under Gaza that the IDF will try to neutralize with ‘sponge bombs’
Troops are said to have used the portable devices in the Israeli army’s ‘mini Gaza’, a replica of the urban warren where they will soon have to fight, built at the Urban Warfare Training Center in the Negev Desert.
According to the Telegraph, the bombs have a metal partition that separates the two volatile liquids, which react immediately when they touch each other.
The material is said to be so dangerous that Israeli troops were blinded during training sessions.
Foam and even slime are often considered for their potential military usefulness, but the results are modest.
A fighter plane with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher climbs out of a Gaza tunnel
A general view shows the interior of what the Israeli military believes is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza into Israel, on the Israeli side of the Gaza Strip border.
The estimate that the tunnels extend for hundreds of kilometers is widely accepted by security analysts, even though the blocked coastal strip is only 40 km long.
US forces used guns that shot ultra-sticky foam as a non-lethal way to take out rioters while deployed in Somalia in the mid-1990s, although results were reportedly mixed.
However, any weapon, no matter how experimental, could be crucial if Israel indeed plans to enter the tunnels.
The estimate that they extend for hundreds of kilometers is widely accepted by security analysts, even though the blocked coastal strip is only 40 kilometers long.
And while Hamas is of course secretive about their networks, recently released Israeli hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, said, “It looked like a spider web, lots of tunnels,” adding, “We walked for miles underground.”