The IDF on Monday, 10 Cheshvan, said it discovered and detonated a terrorist tunnel originating in the Khan Yunis area of Gaza and continuing into Israel. It is stressed that after the IDF operation, “the tunnel no longer poses a threat”.

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 seven people were killed. At least nine wounded were evacuated from the tunnel area to hospital. Witnesses at the hospital identified five of the casualties as members of the Iranian-backed militant group Islamic Jihad. Hamas said one of its members died when he entered the tunnel to evacuate wounded militants.

Hamas had no comment on the Israeli strike but Islamic Jihad militants prevented journalists from filming at the scene, suggesting the tunnel belonged to them.

During the last war between Israel and Gaza in 2014, Hamas terrorists 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 United Nation’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 United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said in a statement that the organization “robustly intervened with relevant parties to protest the violation.”

Israel’s military body responsible for governing Palestinian affairs noted UNRWA’s condemnation, adding that “Hamas is lying not only to the world but to the people of Gaza.”

President Donald Trump’s special Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt took to Twitter to rail against Hamas, which the United States like most of the West considers a terrorist organization.

“Hamas uses the world’s generosity to shield terror. Palestinians in Gaza deserve so much better,” Greenblatt wrote.

Greenblatt also said that, in contrast, a rare meeting between top Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the West Bank yielded “meaningful steps” that strengthened economic ties between the two sides.

“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.”

The IDF statement added, “The IDF will continue to take all the measures at its disposal above and below the ground to thwart attempts to harm the residents of the State of Israel and to maintain the relative quiet in the area achieved after Operation Protective Edge. The IDF did not intend to deteriorate the situation, however, we are prepared for a variety of scenarios.”

(AP / YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)