The IDF showed that tunnel warfare requires teams trained specifically for underground movement, breaching, mapping, and clearance.
By Hezy Laing
The U.S. Army has updated its subterranean warfare doctrine, and one of the most important sources of real‑world lessons has been the IDFs’ experience fighting in Gaza’s tunnel systems.
The IDF’s encounters with large, multi‑level tunnel networks—used for command, logistics, ambush, and maneuver—forced the U.S. to rethink its older assumption that tunnels were merely local obstacles.
Instead, Gaza demonstrated that underground systems can function as operational‑level infrastructure, and U.S. doctrine now treats them accordingly.
One of the clearest influences is the IDF’s use of specialized units such as Yahalom, whose structure and mission helped inspire the U.S. Army’s expansion of dedicated subterranean training at Fort Moore and the Urban Operations Center.
The IDF showed that tunnel warfare requires teams trained specifically for underground movement, breaching, mapping, and clearance.
This led the U.S. to integrate engineer platoons more tightly with infantry companies and to develop new training modules for subterranean maneuver.
The IDF’s reliance on multi‑domain sensing—seismic detectors, fiber‑optic systems, robotic scouts, acoustic mapping, and ground‑penetrating radar—also shaped U.S. doctrine.
American manuals now emphasize the need for layered sensing underground, and updated sections of ATP 3‑21.51 Subterranean Operations and FM 3‑06 Urban Operations reflect this shift.
The IDF’s experience with oxygen‑poor environments, toxic gases, and booby‑trapped ventilation shafts pushed the U.S. Army to incorporate mandatory air monitoring, respiratory protection, and CBRN integration into subterranean operations.
Tactically, Gaza taught the U.S. that tunnel warfare is not simply horizontal movement through confined spaces.
The IDF repeatedly encountered vertical shafts enabling surprise attacks, tunnel entrances hidden inside civilian structures, and underground routes that allowed rapid lateral maneuver beneath dense urban terrain.
U.S. doctrine now stresses constant awareness of vertical threats and the need to coordinate above‑ground and below‑ground movement as a single operational picture.
These lessons appear directly in updated U.S. doctrinal publications. ATP 3‑21.51 now includes expanded guidance on tunnel mapping, underground communications, ventilation hazards, and specialized breaching.
FM 3‑06 contains new sections on subterranean threat networks and tunnel denial. TRADOC G‑2 threat reports explicitly reference “partner nation experience” with Gaza‑style tunnel complexes, and instructors at the Infantry and Engineer Schools have publicly acknowledged that IDF operations were used to redesign American training.
The IDF’s “find, fix, finish” approach to tunnels—locating entrances, isolating them, and then clearing or collapsing the network—has been adopted almost verbatim in U.S. tactical sequencing.
The American Army also incorporated the IDF’s use of robots and canine teams for confined‑space reconnaissance, as well as its methods for tunnel denial, including structural collapse, sealing, and long‑term monitoring.
Gaza mattered to the U.S. Army because it represents the largest modern tunnel network used by a non‑state actor, embedded within dense urban terrain and supported by underground command nodes.
It is the closest real‑world analogue to the kind of urban warfare the U.S. expects to face in future conflicts.
As a result, the IDF’s experience became a major catalyst for revising American subterranean doctrine, reshaping how the U.S. Army trains, equips, and organizes forces for underground combat.
