Israel's Navy installed the the AquaShield Diver Detection Sonar system, pictured, making it possible to identify individual divers underwater from a far greater distance. Photo: DSIT.

JNS.org – During Operation Protective Edge last summer, a small force of Hamas naval commandos managed to approach the Israeli coast from the sea, undetected by military surveillance until the group reached the shore. That event, which was thwarted due to the alertness of an Israeli Navy spotter, is not expected to repeat itself because the Israeli Navy has installed the AquaShield Diver Detection Sonar system, which makes it possible to identify individual divers underwater from a far greater distance off the coast.

The navy has already installed the system—manufactured by DSIT Solutions—along the sea border with the Gaza Strip, and is in the process of installing it along Israel’s northern sea border, Israel Hayom reported. A senior navy officer said, “The chances of a diver infiltrating the system are zero. The system is proven and constitutes a sea barrier for Israel.”

AquaShield is built to detect divers and provide protection for vital infrastructure located at sea and on the coast, such as gas rigs and ports. During the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces was forced, for the first time, to contend with the threat posed by Hamas’s unit of underwater divers. One group managed to infiltrate Israel near Kibbutz Zikim, and was spotted and killed. Had the AquaShield system been deployed prior to Operation Protective Edge, the terrorists would likely have never reached the beach.