Senior Hamas leader Kalil Abu Leila told the Tasnim News Agency in early February that Iran has always supported the Gaza-ruling Palestinian terrorist organization.
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He said the tunnels were “to defend Gaza and become a jumping-off point to all Palestine” (by which he means: a way to attack Israel).
M.M. died when the tunnel near the border town of Rafah collapsed.
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Yuval Steinitz has said that Egypt’s new policy of flooding the tunnels between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula with seawater had come at Israel’s request.
On Tuesday morning, the head of the Israel Defense Forces hinted at hidden efforts to counter Gazan tunnels built with the objective of carrying out attack on Israeli communities near the Gazan border. “Hamas is deterred and still licking its wounds” from the war, he told an audience at a conference on terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, according to Israel’s Army Radio.
The Hamas interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozom said the allegations were “aimed at inciting against the Gaza Strip and causing tension in the relationship between the Strip and the Arab Republic of Egypt (while) working to tighten the siege”. “They tricked us”, she said.
Some IDF officials, meanwhile, played down the threat posed by these tunnels. Maj. Other weapons, such as rockets, have proven to be less effective, and Hamas’ dependence on the tunnels is clear from the decline of the arms smuggling activity after the closure of the tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Breitbart Jerusalem reported recently that Hamas had rejected Iran’s proposal to upgrade relations in exchange for a clear pro-Iranian stance in its conflict with Saudi Arabia.
In December 2014, al-Qassam Brigades formed a special tunnel unit responsible for digging and equipping tunnels and training fighters to use them.
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“The IDF remains prepared and ready to defend Israel’s borders and its civilians, especially those living in close proximity to the Gaza Strip, from any potential threat should it arise”.
