Can Israel flood/use poison gas against the Palestinian tunnel network in Gaza? With Jon Elmer

of course we had the the um on Monday night we had the release of two uh elderly Israeli women from Gaza they were returned home Y lifshitz and narit Cooper and there was this extraordinary scene this video this is the video that was released by Kasam showing their release and then um you know they're given T and so on but then there's this extraordinary moment uh where uh that's lifshitz who's 85 and who is living in um in a kibot near the Gaza border and so she's being handed over to the Red Cross and now and she turns around turns around uh pauses shakes the hand of the Kasam fighter and says Shalom to him and that video of course is now quite famous and caused a lot of a yeah in Israel then she gave a press conference uh John uh on Tuesday from the ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv where she was examined and she was asked well among this has now been widely reported she said that that it was very frightening being uh being taken prisoner and uh being carried on the back of a motorcycle cycle and it was extremely painful and it sounds like an absolutely horrifying experience particularly for a lady of that age but then she talks about uh being taken into a spiderweb of tunnels uh we'll get just hold on to that for a second tomara uh and includ she says a spiderweb of tunnels and a big Hall as as part of this tunnel Network we'll come back to that just hold that thought but then Tamar come back come back to that video uh where she was asked uh why she she shook the hand of that fighter this is what she said go ahead play it let's it and she she says what why they say they treated us gently and they provided for all our needs my m is saying that they treat them kindly and provided for them yeah so that we could I think that's enough we could we can pause it there but so uh she she said of course that the Hamas uh Fighters that that they uh treated the the the captives well that they ate the same food as they did they provided them with medical care and and so on so uh that's just and that caused a huge backlash in Israel we've had journalists and uh apparently officials of the propaganda organiz you know the Israeli official propaganda hasbara saying she shouldn't have been allowed to give a live press conference and her son gave an interview to Israeli television yesterday I believe saying that uh prior to the intervie to the press conference she was coached uh by Israeli officials on what she should should and shouldn't say but she just ignored it and decided to say what what was the truth and what was her experience so that that's just to he said he said she said she's not property of the state exactly yeah exactly but coming back to and then keeping in mind her uh her comments or what she revealed about the tunnels uh let let's look at this story that appeared in Middle East I yesterday John um now this is something we talked about last uh on Monday before this came out this story claims that Israel plans to flood the tunnels with nerve gas and then if you scroll scroll the story a little bit um so we can read the first paragraph or so uh I don't know if we can do that tomorrow or I can pull it up on my computer so it says the first paragraph says Palestinian groups expect Israel to flood Hamas tunnels with the type of Nerf gas or chemical weapon under the surveillance of us Delta Force Commandos as part of a surprise attack on the Gaza Strip a senior Arab Source familiar with the Palestinian groups told uh middle East eye now a couple of now what strikes me there is this is not coming from any alleged Israeli or American Source but from a Palestinian Source I don't know what to make of this John what do you make of it in terms of how this is phrased and also what it claims Could Happen which is uh this this pumping the tunnels full of of nerve gas yeah I mean even if it's a scop it's a deeply disturbing one um it was a story that we talked about on last show because it was first leaked to netanyahu's newspaper the free Sheldon adelen newspaper that gets uh the highest circulation in Israel so it's obviously a scop that they're working on and then they passed it on to Middle East I so um I think you could sort of see where it came from judging by netanyahu's paper but um I I mean it's deeply theoretical I don't uh the there's a bunch of things to say about it the first thing I'd say is it it's assuming that you're clearing the surface level so it's assuming that you're fighting your way through the Gaza Strip into the tunnel area that you're trying to get to so it assumes something right away that's very unclear uh at this point it's very theoretical the Israelis themselves say that the tunnels are their tunnel study is theoretical um because they actually don't have any operational experience in the tunnel their soldiers are prohibited from entering the tunnels unless it's been closed at one end so they don't have any operational experience in the tunnel um that woman the lady released the other day has more much more uh operational experience in the tunnel than any Israeli soldiers even um even close so that's the first thing to say um and then it is assumes that you're able to stay in that position and hold that position and move up and down through the tunnel because the tunnel is a very difficult um space to operate in like she said the lady said it's a spider web and a spider web implies that you have many turns many Forks um and so even if the soldiers can get down into the tunnel it's very resource heavy to be down there because you have to guard with two soldiers each tunnel turn of this spider web that she's describing your radios don't work it's dark um your night vision goggles don't work because it's so dark down there um you don't know where you're going if you send a robot ahead of you you have to tell the robot where to go so if you don't know where to go the robot doesn't know where to go um and so if it was a single objective as if like we're trying to the Delta Force are trying to clear out the basement where they're where they found say they found the place they want to go which itself isn't clear galad Shalit was six years in the Gaza Strip and the Israelis admit they never had a clue where he was at any point in that six years so already we're making enormous assumptions on Israeli capabilities um that they have never demonstrated before so say it's one objective it's one basement it's one room that they're trying to get um can you do 25 of those can you do 40 of those it takes a company level amount of soldiers to handle these operations 200 minimum because the soldiers have to be constantly replaced because it's the air is difficult it's dark disorienting um you're it takes a long time to get down there the tunnels um you know could be 30 40 70 m deep like 70 stories down right like um it's it's deep under the ground and you're disoriented the the air is difficult and then they have doors they have doors on these areas um that lead to the next area those doors can be closed and then they have to be breached so the Israelis have to go down in the tunnel bring the explosives down with them in the 2014 War they were blowing up tunnel entrances with 11 tons of explosives so now you're bringing all of those explosives from Israel you're driving them through Gaza presuming what nobody's shooting at these uh you know transfers um and then you're taking those extremely dangerous explosives down under the ground and you're creating explosions where your soldiers are you're risking tunnel collapses the air is terrible um and your own people that you're in theory trying to to save sounds like you're trying to kill them if you're going to put nerve gas in there um are down there and that's one that's if it's one tunnel there's 1300 tunnels there's 500 kilometers of the Israelis say 500 kilometers of tunnels and some of them are 70 meters deep so uh it's just a really difficult uh thing to imagine and while that's all happening the Palestinians have self-contained units so they have phone lines that are just for the tunnels they don't connect outside they can't be tapped they're down there with food fuel uh oxygen ventilation Weaponry um they have all of the advantages every single Advantage is there underneath the ground I think sorry John I think we we have a there was a video that was released of the tunnels recently um which I think we can play um let's play it and then we can talk about [Music] it right so that's a Sarah Al's video and you can see from there I'm just sorry John to interrupt just for those who didn't understand it the that s the Islamic jihad's military wing and at the end of that video they say so they're saying to the Israelis you know welcome we're waiting for you so it's kind of taunting them yeah and the lights are on when the Israelis come they'll turn the lights off so it'll be total darkness and you see those that fork the fork that that they walk around when they turn the corner if the Israelis are going down there with men they need to every everyone every one of those turns needs to be defended so the sold that do actually make it down into the tunnel and they're moving through the tunnel disoriented pitch black no radios counting their footsteps to try to figure out which ways north south east or west uh Palestinians all know where those tunnel turns are and when the Israelis reach each turn they have to leave a soldier to guard that flank right so each soldier that is coming down has to guard each one of those turns or else they're going to be ambushed from behind the tunnels are designed for that purpose they're designed ultimately uh for protection but with the understanding that there's going to be an attacking force in theory like the Israelis say in theory they have no operational experience doing this um that they'll be attacked so you have to assume which we don't know but you'll have to assume that there's booby traps that there's false doors that there's fake entrances that they spend time and resources trying to blow up where there's nothing behind it um any kind of decoys like that the whole time they're doing this they're at the risk of mass casualty their own gas they're carrying their own gas down into this tunnel um they get trapped in a room holding their gas it's not clear that that's even possible there's 1300 tunnels 500 kilometers of it I don't think that you can have uh air sealing on seal of the air enough to for gas to penetrate something that's a half the size of the New York Subway system it just seems like we're talking in real deep theory about the gas but in talking about this disgusting story about the gas we can learn about the tunnels and we can also understand what Israel's sense is um because that's their dream scenario um that brutal War crime that the world would talk about for Generations gassing people underground um that that's that's something that they're thinking about because they don't have any idea what to do with this strategic uh objective in front of them even each tactical stage when you listen to Subterranean soldiers Special Forces talk about this stuff the Americans have special forces Subterranean units to um to prepare for fighting in North Korea where they have you know probably the best underground network uh we don't know because we haven't seen Gaza but probably better than Gaza um the Americans have soldiers training for that and you can hear them talking about it they're talking about wearing chemical suits because it's so dangerous with your Weaponry off gassing um so they're wearing these big um like Hazmat type suits they have gas masks um they and they pass out they have these special forces soldiers that are supposed to be you know the strongest toughest um in their army and they're passing out um they're disoriented they're claustrophobic as you can imagine um and it's scary it's deeply scary for them to do it even if they're capable of doing it which there's no sign um so far that that that that is the case the enormity of the task to you know quote unquote eradicate Hamas means you're going to be fighting down in this space for years this is not a multi-day operation first they did say they did say that they're planning for a long War though so is isn't this exactly what they're they're ready for and Netanyahu yesterday gave a national address promising the Israeli people yeah there will be a a ground Invasion it's all planned where we're ready to go we're just you know we're doing it in our own time so is that all Bluff or is it I mean how what you're saying and what they're saying are on opposite uh polls so to speak well I mean I think they're saying the same thing when you read their tunnel um their tunnel experts are saying the same thing that it's not clear um you know IDC herzelia which is the like leading security Think Tank their their tunnel uh specialist IDF tunnel specialist didn't see uh that this was a possible Operation American tunnel Fighter special forces aren't saying that it's going to be uh that they've never seen it before it's yeah it's possible it happens the Israelis have thousands of soldiers that have been training for more than a decade special forces units that have trained only for this they spend all their time training for this operation um and it's entirely possible that uh that they are prepared for it I'm just saying we haven't seen that we haven't seen any record of that in any of these wars where tunnels were a factor they were a factor in South Lebanon in 2006 they were obviously a huge factor in 2014 the tunnels the two operations um the one in Jaa and the one in Rafa um basically ended the ground operation they were both so spectacular uh you know visions of defeat for the Israelis they're chasing their soldiers down into the into the tunnels assuming they had been caught um going against the prohibition and then they carried out the Hannibal directive in both of those instances um because this it's it's it's very difficult fighting um because we're theorizing uh and speculating my position is not that they cannot not do it uh if you want to spend 10 years um if you want to ethnically cleanse the population so that you don't have resistance on the surface level um Palestinians are preparing to fight them in the air we've seen the suicide drones be used um they're preparing to fight them up and down tall buildings they're preparing to fight them on the street level and they're preparing to fight them underneath the ground so it's a very very sophisticated operation that the Israelis are going to have to pull off that presumably they've been planning some time for but the surprise attack of October 7th def definitely expedited uh whatever plans they did have for an invasion because the way Israel treats Gaza it seemed like there wasn't going to be an invasion they were going to lock the place shut with this very expensive fence that was going to just keep people trapped inside like they have always been they could run uh you know run skeleton Crews on a holiday um which is what that they say was happening during that attack um yeah it's it's it's an enormous task the thing that they're talking about to eradicate every Hamas Fighter for generations to come as Netanyahu said um is a very maximalist goal that um in the most difficult Terrain in the world the ex centcom Chief said that it would be a bloodbath for both sides so that's sencom saying it's going to be a bloodbath for the Israelis and I don't think that they're not hearing that in those meetings with the Americans I I have to assume that they're aware of that and I guess the supposition for the Israelis is that they believe that they will somehow through intelligence or somehow discover the place where the captives are held and then it's just a single operation to get down into that room but we don't know that they know where they are and so oh and it seems unlikely it seems unlikely that they would all be held in the same place as well they'll be in different places they'll be above and below ground um and you'll have people preparing to fight in in that video that we saw there's not enough room you're single file um you know you're not bringing motorcycles down there but Palestinians have motorcycles down there you don't have command and control if you're the Israelis because you can't use your radios underground but Palestinians have command and control because they have uh secure phone lines uh self-contained phone lines which should give them command and control throughout the entire War which at times the Israelis won't have because when they're working in an urban environment their radio signals are going to be blocked by high buildings and by the the towers that they dropped on top of people um the concrete and rebar and people's lives are breaking up their radio streams and their vaunted network connectivity um it's a very very difficult fight that they're promising um it's a brutal fight and it's a fight that maybe by the time they've uh killed the number of people necessary to do this brutality that gassing people by the end uh they might think that that's a normal thing to be talking about but I would suggest that it it says that Delta Force is out of ideas if they're using Delta Force as uh you know as the ostensible authors of these plans um it it seems to me to show a lack of a plan more than it does something um reasonably possible I don't I I think that you I mean we've seen gas used in the subway systems um in Japan and in New York and it it it it impacts one station but it doesn't penetrate down the line and go all through the entire network to such a degree that all the fighters fall to you know fall dead and you just step over them on the way to save the day um you're exposed to that gas too um presumably um so it's it's difficult to know how they would do it even if it was one objective if they found the spot it was one objective they drilled down a hole inserted it um somehow with gas it can't be done by flooding which is the other part of that story there's not enough pressure to do that and it also presupposes that you can preposition your infrastructure in the middle of a war zone for long periods of time because the soldiers that go down in the tunnels they need to be replenished they need to be uh they need to rotate in and out because you can't go down um for long periods of time they they pass out they they're not good at using their breathing apparatuses they only have an hour of air um there's all kinds of difficulties um and all kinds of defensive advantages for the Palestinians in the tunnel Network to fight in the tunnel Network itself there's also significant advantages to having your command and control completely underground um during this whole War the Palestinians haven't had that kind of long-term stable leadership that hasn't been assassinated but but but Gaza has that and has had that for you know seven or eight years I guess Jabari was the last assassination which is like 2012 it's it's so it's the Palestinians have significant advantages in the tunnel Network