Tunnel Warfare: From China, Vietnam to the Gaza Strip

go through Enrico DiGregorio

More than 80 years after the Chinese Communist Party began building tunnels to resist the Japanese invasion, this people’s war strategy, which stems from broader military theory, remains prevalent and continues to evolve.

On July 16, Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah released a video of its underground military base, which boasts impressive capabilities: fighters are shown advancing through elaborate tunnels on foot, on motorcycles and in trucks loaded with rockets.

Inside the large chamber, fighters planned daily military operations while others drove several trucks to the gates, which, when opened, would allow missiles to be fired directly into Israeli territory.

Elsewhere at the same base, soldiers worked and received treatment at a field hospital and were given supplies to keep them alive underground for a year, Al-Mayadeen news agency reported.

Everything is done in secret. High-tech equipment ensures absolute encryption of information, and the information transmission is fast and secret.

The video shows the remarkable development of tunnel warfare by oppressed peoples, especially Arab peoples, about 50 years after wars such as the Vietnam War (1955-1975), when this guerrilla tactic became famous around the world.

Hezbollah’s military media released a video titled “Our Mountain, Our Treasure.”

The video shows an underground missile facility called “Imad 4”. pic.twitter.com/l6wtOnNq68

— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) August 16, 2024

Guerrilla Techniques

The Vietnam War, which began after the French left and the Americans arrived in Vietnam, is a classic case of a revolutionary force supported by the people defeating an initially stronger and better prepared army.

This was a conflict in which the weaker side used guerrilla tactics such as tunnel warfare to circumvent unfavorable conditions.

Vietnam’s guerrilla zones are dominated by a network of underground passages like the Cu Chi Tunnels, which have about 250 kilometers of interconnected passages dotted with small rooms used as classrooms and outpatient clinics, and entrances and exits throughout the rainforest.

In this sense, the tunnels were used both for military operations and to deepen the cooperation between the revolutionary forces and the people, as the masses could also go underground to avoid bombings, receive medical treatment and attend classes together with the soldiers.

The use of this strategy in Vietnam was also inspired by other experiences, especially the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945).

Red Army

During this war, the Red Army led by the Communist Party of China, headed by Chairman Mao Zedong, built various tunnel networks within a radius of about 250 kilometers around Beijing to resist the attack of Japanese imperialism.

These tunnels are very simple, about 1 to 1.5 meters high and 70 to 80 centimeters wide, but they are very practical, with command posts, warehouses, canteens and toilets inside.

The entire network is protected by armor and special doors to prevent water and poisonous gases from entering. Entrances are well camouflaged by various structures: campfires, haystacks and wells can hide small hatches leading to underground barracks in some places.

The film Tunnel Warfare (1965) depicts the various techniques invented by the masses in the tunnels, such as a system that could collect water expelled by the Japanese army during floods and redirect it to the village for basic daily operations.

Similar strategies

Experts point out that there is an influence relationship between Asian strategies and Arab strategies.

“The use of tunnels has been around for thousands of years, but the Vietnamese and Chinese were particularly successful in using them. There are many direct references to these experiences in the materials of Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” said Alberto García Molinero, a researcher at the University of Granada. “The general influence of the social context of the time (the socialist camp), the direct links and the recognition of this inspiration all indicate a direct and indirect dialogue between the different scenes.”

That inspiration, he explains, took off in the 1960s, when Palestinians began to employ guerrilla techniques in their armed struggle against Zionism after conventional Arab armies defeated Israel.

The consequences were almost immediate: hundreds of Israeli soldiers were killed within months or weeks in operations led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Fatah.

“People’s War”

In this sense, seeing the victories of China and Vietnam could serve as examples for Palestinian organizations, who began to study military theories applied in the Asian region in order to creatively replicate them in their own countries.

“The success of the guerrilla struggle strategy was largely inspired by China and Vietnam. These two Asian countries had a greater influence on world revolutionaries than the Soviet Union. This was due to a variety of factors, including the nature of Maoism,” Molinello added.

“Both Mao’s concept of people’s war and the Vietnamese people have proven that it is possible to defeat an infinitely powerful enemy like imperialism as long as the people are mobilized.”

The construction of these tunnels began in Gaza around the 1980s.

“The tunnels began to be built after Egypt and Israel ended the Rafah partition agreement between Egypt and Palestine, which led to the separation of many Palestinian families. Then, as the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip intensified, the tunnels began to increase, initially more for economic and trade reasons than military ones,” explained Dr. Ramzi Baroud, a Palestinian journalist and editor of the Palestine Chronicle.

Gilad Shalit

The Palestinians began using the tunnels for military purposes around 2006.

A signature action of this period was when fighters from the Qassam Brigades, Popular Resistance Committees, and Army of Islam tunneled across the Israeli border to the town of Keret Shalom and attacked Israeli command posts.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and one of them, Gilad Shalit, was captured. Shalit was held in Gaza for five years until he was swapped for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in 2011.

“The capture of Shalit was one of the most successful military uses of Palestinian tunnels in the early stages of the process. This was the seed of using tunnels to sow in the Palestinian resistance. After that, the wars of 2008-2009 and 2012 became a new turning point in the tunnels’ primarily military use,” Baroud said.

Lebanon tunnels, Yemen caves

Alongside the Palestinians, other Arab nations also began digging tunnels in an effort to defeat enemy forces.

The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon, which was ultimately won by the Lebanese resistance, was largely decided by these tunnels, which were used to store weapons, produce and store missiles, serve as command bases, and, of course, as a means of transporting troops.

Hezbollah began building the tunnels around 2000, when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1985.

As the report Underground Environments: Tunnels to Victory, the 2006 Lebanon War reveals, the movement’s fighters were aware of the possibility of a new occupation and began building tunnels as a preventive measure.

In fact, this strategy proved to be correct when the Zionists invaded the country again in a new war.

Ansarallah Movement

In Yemen, Ansarallah has also perfected its underground techniques.

The group has used caves as bases since its founding in 1994, when it was still fighting the reactionary government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was overthrown in 2011. But it began to further develop the strategy in 2014, the same year Saudi Arabia and the United States invaded Yemen in an attempt to stop Ansarallah’s advance.

As this development progressed, Yemeni anti-imperialists expanded tunnel construction, using caves already mapped by former Ansarallah groups and even the previous government and digging new tunnels. In recent years, satellite imagery has documented new construction in Hafa, Dabur, and the capital, Sanaa.

“Gaza Metro”

Today, it is undeniable that the tunnels play a fundamental role in the anti-imperialist war waged by various Arab organizations.

The scale of these structures is impressive: in 2016, former Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh (assassinated by Israel in July 2024) said that Gaza’s tunnel network is twice as large as the Guzhi Tunnels.

According to estimates from January this year, the pipeline network could be between 563 and 724 meters long (about twice the length of the Gaza Strip) and 50 to 70 meters deep.

While some sections of the Palestinian tunnels may resemble those of the Chinese and Vietcong, other parts of the “Gaza Metro” are riddled with cement potholes, some wide enough for fighters to stand or even ride through in vans.

“There are different types of tunnels in Gaza. The most common ones are used for defence, attack and storage. But there are also some that are used as command centres and their nature oscillates between defence and attack,” Baroud explained.

Tunnel Depth

The depth of the tunnel excavation provides a strong security guarantee for the resistance forces.

Analysts such as Professor Zoran Kusovac believe that weapons such as ordinary iron bombs, rocket-accelerated bombs, tandem warheads and special bunker-busting bombs are ineffective in destroying Hamas tunnels.

The maximum penetration depth of iron bullets is 3 meters, which can hardly reach the surface of Hamas tunnels.

Rocket-accelerated bombs work well over open terrain but are less effective in areas like the Gaza Strip that are covered in buildings, structures and rubble, an obstacle that also prevents the use of tandem warheads.

On the other hand, a bunker buster (used in assassination bunker-buster attacks during the invasion of Iraq) might work better, but Israel does not know the location of Hamas tunnels well enough to use it.

These structures have been known for decades and have played a vital role in the guerrilla war waged by the Palestinian national resistance since October 7. Even before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, the tunnels served as a deterrent to Israel, as the Zionist military leadership knew it would be difficult to survive in enemy territory.

The struggle against imperialism

In recent years, Ansarallah has also shown off its hidden bases.

After releasing satellite photos of the tunnels, Ansarallah’s deputy information minister said that “the photos shown are insignificant compared to the infrastructure we have now, as they are just small tunnels for personal use.”

And Hezbollah uses tunnel videos as a deterrent to war, which in itself reveals the carrying capacity of tunnel construction.

More than 80 years after the Chinese Communists began building tunnels to resist the Japanese invasion, this people’s war strategy, derived from broader military theory, remains effective and continues to evolve, as it is applied in new and specific contexts.

The anti-imperialist struggle in the Middle East has demonstrated, more than any other revolutionary experience of the 21st century so far, the incredible relevance of the armed struggle and military theory developed in China and partially applied by the Arab peoples.