Israeli aircraft targeted two Hamas sites in southern Gaza early Saturday in response to a cross-border rocket attack, the army said, as tensions along the Palestinian territory’s border simmered.
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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.
Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the tunnel unearthed on Thursday was situated 28 meters (31 yards) below the surface and that an investigation was under way to determine whether it was dug before or after the war.
In response, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said they won’t be deterred by Hamas threats and will continue to search for tunnels.
During the 7 week 2014 invasion of Gaza, Israel killed some 2,200 Palestinians, overwhelmingly civilians. Since the beginning of 2015, 30 Palestinians have been killed and almost 1400 injured by Israeli soldiers in Gaza during cross border shootings and military incursions.
Top Israeli ministers are expected to discuss the fire exchange around the Gaza Strip border fence at the meeting.
The army announced that it found a previously undetected tunnel on Thursday, after a first find was revealed with extensive media coverage in mid-April.
During the conflict, Palestinian resistance fighters relied on a system of subterranean tunnels to stage attacks on Israeli troops deployed near the border.
In a separate incident, four members of the same family were wounded – three children and a 65-year-old man – in an airstrike on a workshop in Gaza’s Al-Zeitoun district.
Yediot Aharonot newspaper said the report by the state comptroller, a national watchdog, would conclude that during the conflict “the security establishment did not have a comprehensive plan for dealing with Hamas’s offensive tunnels”.
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A senior Israeli defence source said on 5 May that “in the past 24 hours, Hamas understood that the IDF had begun approaching its tunnel and wished to signal to Israel – through imprecise mortar fire – to stop”. Some 193 Palestinians have been killed, most said by Israel to have been attackers and the rest killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
