TIL Desk/World/Jerusalem/ Israeli forces on Sunday destroyed a “significant” cross-border attack tunnel from the Gaza Strip, which the military said was being dug by the enclave`s dominant Islamist group, Hamas.
The announcement, cleared by Israeli censors who had previously barred reports of detection work around the central Gaza frontier, followed a surge of Palestinian unrest in response to last week`s U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel`s capital.
It also came as Palestinian factions tried to meet Sunday`s deadline for an Egyptian-mediated handover of Gaza by Hamas to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas after a decade`s schism.
A network of Gaza tunnels allowed Hamas gunmen to blindside Israel`s superior forces during the 2014 war and the Israelis, with U.S. help, have since stepped up work on counter-measures.
The tunnel destroyed on Sunday ran hundreds of metres into Israeli territory and, though unfinished, was a new project that showed “a significant effort by Hamas”, military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus told.
