Not long after the conflict between the Hamas forces in Gaza and the Israeli military, smuggler tunnels are being excavated again in the Palestinian territory along its border with Egypt despite ongoing risk of air attacks on the digs. Here, a tunnel is shown being excavated in Rafah early this month.
Last month, researchers in Israel announced they had developed a system of buried fibre optic cables to detect ground movement due to such excavations. The system, developed by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s civil and environmental engineering dept, is based on strain measurements in the cables caused by ground movements.
The researchers said the system was verified to differentiate between tunnelling and other ground changes, and it may be possible to detect excavations at depths of up to 20m. However, details were not immediately available on the ranges and tolerances of the geological and groundwater conditions studied.
