Israel bombs Gaza tunnel, closes crossing after attack

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Saturday that it was shutting down its main cargo crossing into Gaza after Palestinian protesters caused damage to it and that airstrikes had destroyed an attack tunnel militants dug near its main pedestrian crossing.

The developments come ahead of a potentially tense week along the Israel-Gaza border as weekly protests being staged there are expected to escalate.

A group of Palestinians on Friday burned a fuel complex and conveyor belt on their side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, causing more than $9 million in damages and disrupting the import of diesel fuel and building materials, the military said.

The fuel installation is the only way to bring diesel fuel into Gaza for operating generators for hospitals and other facilities.

Late Saturday, the military carried out several airstrikes in the northern Gaza strip, near the Erez border crossing, to destroy a Hamas tunnel that was being built there. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the tunnel was being tracked for weeks and had been destroyed a few yards inside Gaza. It’s the sixth such Hamas tunnel Israel has destroyed in as many months thanks to the military’s new technological means to detect and destroy them.

Also Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a wave of Israeli strikes on Iranian military positions in Syria this week killed 42 people, including at least 19 Iranians and six Syrian soldiers.