No need for a tunnel when the fence is breached
The article argues that the public debate over locating shafts near Qalqilya and whether they constitute a tunnel misses the bigger picture: the fence is not hermetic, there are breaches, and about 50,000 illegal residents are in Israel. The IDF issued an unusual clarification denying the tunnel suspicion, but the author emphasizes that the real threat is the permeability of the entire space, not the existence of a specific tunnel.
The article, by Yossi Yehoshua, argues that the public debate over locating shafts near Qalqilya and whether they connect to a tunnel misses the bigger picture. The IDF issued an unusual statement denying the police's tunnel suspicion, and even criticized the official announcement. The author emphasizes that the fence is not hermetic, there are breaches, and about 50,000 illegal residents are in Israel. The real threat, he says, is the permeability of the entire space, not the existence of a specific tunnel. The article compares the current security reality to that of Operation Defensive Shield (2002): then fewer than 200,000 Israelis lived in Judea and Samaria, today about 560,000, alongside about 2.5 million Palestinians. The number of settlements has grown, settlement has expanded, and friction has become more complex. The Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, defines Judea and Samaria as one of three concerning arenas, alongside Gaza and Lebanon. In the Central Command, 26 battalions are currently deployed under three divisional frameworks. The last three attacks were by lone assailants, harder to thwart through intelligence. The conclusion: the lesson from Qalqilya is not that a tunnel is needed to justify preparedness, but that the problem is the permeability of the space, and the solution is closing breaches, intelligence, and territorial control.