The Israeli army said Friday it “uncovered a new tunnel” stretching from Gaza into Israeli territories.
According to the spokesman of the Israeli army Lt Col Peter Lerner, the tunnel runs hundreds of meters inside Israel. Lerner said that investigations are underway to find out the purpose of the tunnel. He added, however, that the Israeli army “assumes, based on scientific evidence, that Hamas or other terrorist organisations build tunnels in order to prepare for attacks against Israel and its citizens.”
In 2013, Israel said it discovered three tunnels along the security barrier separating Israel and Gaza. The last tunnel discovered on October 7, 2013, was 18 meters deep, and 1.7 km long. It was later blown up by the Israeli army in November 2013.
Tunnels have been reportedly used to launch attacks against Israeli territories. In one of these attacks, Palestinian militants captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was later released in exchange for 1027 prisoners, mainly Palestinians.
Egypt and Israel have imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s victory in legislative elections in 2007.
The Egyptian military-installed authorities have destroyed a large number of tunnels linking Gaza and Egypt after it accused Hamas of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, labelled by the post-coup authorities as a “terrorist” group.