Israel Deploying Special Weapon To Deal With Hamas Inside Tunnels: Report

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will reportedly deploy a new weapon to trap and seal off Hamas terrorists inside the hundreds of miles of underground tunnels that they hide in underneath Gaza.

The Telegraph reported that the IDF will use “sponge bombs” to fight the terrorist group responsible for massacring 1,400 Israelis and wounding 5,300+ in an unprecedented terror attack earlier this month.

Sponge bombs, which Israel has reportedly been using in training exercises over the last two years, are chemical bombs that when detonated rapidly expands into a foam that quickly hardens.

The sponge bombs would allow Israel to prevent Hamas from ambushing them as they move through Gaza since they will be able to seal off entire sections of tunnel.

“Contained in a plastic container, the specialist devices have a metal partition separating two liquids,” the report said. “Once this barrier is extracted, the compounds mix as the soldier positions the ‘bomb’ or throws it further ahead.”

IDF engineering specialists are able to detect where the tunnels are located via “ground and aerial sensors, ground penetrating radar and special drilling systems,” the report said.

Sponge bombs are reportedly hazardous to work with as some soldiers have been blinded by mishandling the liquid mixture.

Underground warfare more closely resembles fighting underwater than fighting inside a building, according to John Spencer, a former US major who chairs urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

“Nothing that is used on the surface works in the same way or with the same efficiency underground,” he said. “Specialized equipment is needed to see, to breathe, to navigate, to map the space, to communicate and to deploy lethal means.”

Related: Israel Pounds Iranian-Backed Terrorist Targets Inside Gaza, Lebanon, Syria