Israeli army bombs Gaza ‘underground’ complex

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military carried out an air raid overnight against an underground Hamas facility in the Gaza Strip and destroyed a separate tunnel under construction that could be used for attacks, it said yesterday. No casualties were reported in either operation, which came after an explosive device was detonated near the Gaza border with Israel, the latest in a string of such incidents. Israel’s military said the operation to destroy the tunnel involved new technology it has been developing to detect them.

“Our policy is to act resolutely against any attempt to harm us and systematically eliminate the terror tunnel infrastructure, and we will continue doing so,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, called Israel’s actions an attempt “to scare the people” and head off planned protests along the border beginning later this month. Israel “bears all the consequences of the escalation,” Hamas spokesman Fawzy Barhoum said. Beginning on March 30, Gazans are planning to erect hundreds of tents near the Israeli border in a six-week show of support for Palestinian refugees.

Regarding the overnight operations, Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said Hamas had been digging the tunnel to link up with an older one in the south of the Palestinian enclave. The new tunnel had not reached Israeli territory but was within a few hundred meters of the border fence, near the Kerem Shalom goods crossing and in the area of the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, he said. The older tunnel did “partially” reach into Israeli territory, but had been discovered and cut off in 2014. —AFP