(Israel Hayom via JNS) Infiltration tunnels are a serious threat and will play a major part in the next armed conflict on Israel’s northern and southern borders, a senior Israeli military official said Sunday. Furthermore, said Israel Defense Forces Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein, who heads the IDF’s tunnel warfare development efforts, some of the tactics already developed for underground warfare will soon become obsolete. Edelstein was speaking at a symposium titled “Subterranean Challenges in War and Peace,” hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in collaboration with the United States Military Academy and the U.S. Embassy in Israel.

Edelstein noted that tunnels greatly complicate urban warfare scenarios, as buildings that have been cleared of hostiles could still pose a risk due to concealed tunnel exits. And tunnel warfare, he emphasized, is here to stay.

“If in the past there was the question of whether we could counter the terror tunnels without entering them–we won’t have this privilege in the future. There is a 100 percent chance that we will face the challenge of the tunnels in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The tunnel threat is particularly severe in the northern sector, he said, where “every village [in southern Lebanon] has tunnels.”

Tunnel warfare poses special challenges to modern armies, said Edelstein, “Tunnel warfare reduces nearly all the advantages you have when fighting above ground to almost zero, be it with respect to firepower, engaging the enemy, and the troops’ movement,” he said. Furthermore, he explained, “One of the problems is that we don’t have the intelligence capability to discern the location of each and every tunnel. No one unit can handle locating a tunnel and neutralizing it–we need an entire strategic lineup for that.”