Israel destroys militant tunnel
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said it discovered and detonated a militant tunnel on Monday that was dug from Gaza into Israel.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said thanks to groundbreaking technology this “active tunnel,” which was still being dug, was discovered and forces blew it up inside Israeli territory. He said military intelligence had been tracking it for some time.
He called it a “grave and unacceptable violation of Israeli sovereignty” and that Israel holds Hamas responsible for the breach of its territory. Conricus says the assumption is there are more tunnels boring into Israel aimed at attacking its soldiers and citizens.
Ashraf al-Kidra, a Gaza Health Ministry spokesman, said eight wounded people were evacuated from the tunnel area to hospital, including one in critical condition.
Hamas had no comment on the Israeli strike but militants from the smaller Islamic Jihad group prevented journalists from filming at the scene, suggesting the tunnel belonged to them.
“Those who try to harm us, we harm them,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Today we detected a tunnel and destroyed it and we will continue to do so.”
During the 2014 war, Hamas militants on several occasions made their way into Israel through a tunnel network that caught Israel off guard. Although they did not manage to reach civilian areas, the infiltrations terrified the local population. Israel destroyed 32 tunnels during that conflict, and since then has made neutralizing the tunnel threat a top priority.
Israel has long claimed Hamas has been investing in new tunnels since the last war to attack Israel rather than helping its own people recover.
The military’s discovery followed word from the UN’s refugee agency that it had found what appeared to be a tunnel burrowed beneath one of the schools it operates in the Gaza Strip. Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency, said in a statement that the organization “robustly intervened with relevant parties to protest the violation.”