According to the statement, three mortar shells were fired at Israeli forces engaged in operational activities near the border security fence along the southern Gaza Strip.
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The Israelis made clear that they will continue to search for the tunnels Hamas is known to be building beneath the Gaza Strip and into Israel to use as staging areas for terror attacks against Israeli targets.
Most of the sporadic rocket fire from Gaza has been attributed to fringe Islamist groups challenging Hamas’s authority, although Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from the territory and routinely responds with attacks on its positions.
Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said the new tunnel discovered Thursday had been about 30 metres (100 feet) deep.
Israel and Hamas have said they want to maintain the truce that ended 50 days of war in the summer of 2014. Haniyeh said that Israeli forces had intruded “150 to 199 meters on the pretext of searching for tunnels”. The prime minister’s office said the report was political. The Palestinians have fired mortars at Israeli troops and Israeli aircraft and artillery have struck inside Gaza. In response, Israeli aircraft carried out strikes against a Hamas facility in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces say they have been conducting operations against tunnels under the border of Gaza used by militants, and on Thursday discovered a tunnel built by Hamas.
“In the night there is the sound of mortars, bombs, planes”, said Jehan Berman, a resident of kibbutz Kerem Shalom which is only 40m from the border with Gaza.
Some 193 Palestinians have been killed, most said by Israel to have been attackers and the rest killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
An Israeli tank round killed a Palestinian woman when it hit her home east of Khan Yunis on Thursday.
His comments came after a new round of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip in recent days.
Israel and Hamas, which rules the enclave since 2007 after a falling out with the rivaling Fatah faction in the West Bank, have fought several rounds in the enclave in the past decade.
The children were between 1 and 4 years old.
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Al Jazeera has more details on the latest strikes, including Israeli military statements on the flare-up of violence. The discovery follows another on April 18 in which the IDF said it had uncovered the first Hamas tunnel since the devastating 2014 war in Gaza.
