Abdel Ra'ouf D. A. R. Arnaout,Nour Mahd Ali Abu Aisha
15 August 2022•Update: 15 August 2022
JERUSALEM
The Israeli army said Monday it had destroyed a tunnel dug by Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Military spokesperson Ella Waweya said the tunnel was dug from inside the northern Gaza Strip towards Israel.
The tunnel did not cross through a security barrier erected by Israel on Gaza border, the spokesperson said, without providing a date for the tunnel’s destruction.
She said the tunnel did not pose any threat to the Israeli territory.
"The IDF is fully prepared for a wide range of scenarios in the Gaza Strip," Waweya said.
For his part, commander of the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, Nimrod Aloni, said Israeli forces “have been working in the area of the Northern Brigade to thwart a tunnel belonging to the Hamas organization."
"The tunnel is an attack tunnel that splits into two parts. It crossed Israeli territory, but it did not pass the area of the new security obstacle, and therefore did not pose a threat to the citizens of Israel at any stage," he said.
He said Hamas operatives sought to restore an old tunnel, which was attacked by Israeli forces in May 2021.
There was no comment from Hamas on the allegation.
Israel carried out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Aug. 5, in which over 47 Palestinians were killed and scores injured. The offensive came to a halt under an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.
*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat
