Gaza City – Palestinian media sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Tuesday that a Hamas operative was killed and several others were injured or missing in a tunnel collapse.
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These reports are thus far unconfirmed.
If true, this would mark the second time in recent weeks that an underground passageway collapsed with Hamas figures inside.
Seven Hamas men were killed when a tunnel collapsed close to the Gaza Strip’s eastern border with Israel, the Islamist group’s armed wing said on Thursday.
It said the collapse occurred last week as a result of heavy rain and it took two days to find the bodies and announce the deaths. Mosques across the Palestinian enclave mourned those killed, calling them “Martyrs of the Preparation,” a reference to their work digging tunnels used to attack Israel.
Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said on Friday that the group will never stop digging tunnels and upgrading rockets in preparation for any possible confrontation with Israel.
Haniyeh, who is also Hamas’s deputy chief, spoke to a crowd of worshipers in a Gaza City mosque during prayers that were followed by the funeral for the seven Hamas men.
“There are heroes east of Gaza City, digging the rocks and building tunnels,” said Haniyeh. “And west of Gaza, heroes are testing rockets every morning and every day and it is all preparations.”
“Under the ground and above the ground, in tunnels and above the ground and into the sky, with rockets and in the sea and everywhere, it is the permanent preparation for the sake of Jerusalem and Palestine, and for the sake of the intifada of Jerusalem and the sake of our people,” Haniyeh said.
In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week that Israel will respond more forcefully than it did during 2014’s Operation protective Edge it it is attacked from the Gaza Strip’s terror tunnels.
Netanyahu, speaking to the annual meeting of Israel’s ambassadors and consuls-general, related to the recent Hamas threats and boasts about those tunnels.
“If we are attacked from the tunnels in the Gaza Strip we will respond with great force against Hamas, with much greater force then we used during Operation Protective Edge,” he said.
“I think they understand this in the region, and in the world,” he added. “I hope we do not need to do this, but our defensive and offensive capabilities are developing rapidly, and I do not suggest that anyone test us.”
send all of Israels loyal Arab citizens to fight for their country.
I fail to understand how tunnels are collapsing when the petrified Israeli government said there are no tunnels. But if it turns out there are tunnels that Hammas uses G-d forbid, Hammas will be sorry that there were tunnels.
Maybe Israel is doing the right thing with the Tunnels this time around…
Gishmay Bracha !!!!
why is Israel merely threatening to respond “if attacks are launched from the tunnels?!” Why aren’t they rspodning to the EXISTENCE of the tunnels?!?!
They should experience many more tunnel collapses. They should use the bunker busting bombs along the entire Gaza border to trap the rats in their tunnels.
Building tunnels is an act of war, even without a single gram of gunpowder being ignited. Israel should locate these tunnels, bomb them, and take out a few cities in Gaza. These barbaric animals do not deserve life.
Digging a tunnel makes you an “operative?” Seems more like a groundhog, but Arabs romanticize everything.
To#7 Supplying the equipment to build the tunnels should be considered an act of war also!! If countries send cement to build houses, they use it to build tunnels so the average citizen continues to suffer in the outdoors or in tents. Go figure their minds?