Israel cautions Gaza’s militants

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Gaza militants Sunday against attacks as the Islamic Jihad group vowed revenge for the demolition of one of its tunnels that crossed into Israel.

The Iranian-backed group has threatened to carry out attacks after the tunnel was demolished last month, killing a dozen militants. It was a rare flare-up along the tense border, which has remained mostly quiet since a 2014 IsraelHamas war.

On several occasions, gunmen from Gaza infiltrated Israel through a tunnel network during the fighting that year.

Israel “will respond with a heavy hand to anyone who tries to attack us, or does attack us, from any front,” Netanyahu said at a weekly Cabinet meeting. Israel holds Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, responsible for any attacks launched from the territory, he added.

Earlier, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who heads COGAT, the defense body responsible for Palestinian civilian matters, also issued a warning, saying the militants “are playing with fire at the expense of the Gaza residents, Palestinian reconciliation efforts and the stability of the entire region.”

Toward the end of the 2014 war, Israel destroyed more than 30 tunnels that Hamas had dug under the border. Gaza militants had used the tunnels to infiltrate Israel and carry out attacks. Although they did not manage to reach civilian areas, the infiltrations by heavily armed Palestinian gunmen caught Israel off guard and terrified the local population.

Since then Israel has made neutralizing the tunnel threat a top priority, and several crossborder tunnels have been discovered and demolished since the war.

Daoud Shehab, an Islamic Jihad spokesman, called the comments by Netanyahu and Mordechai “a declaration of war.”