The military wing of Hamas on Monday claimed responsibility for a tunnel built under the border between Gaza and Israel.
“This tunnel was made by the hand of the fighters of (Izzadine) al-Qassam and they will not sleep in their efforts to hit the occupation and kidnap soldiers,” the group’s spokesman Abu Obeida told Hamas’s al-Aqsa radio.
“We are working on the ground and under the ground to release the prisoners (held by Israel),” he said.
“Kidnapping soldiers is the only way to succeed against the (Israeli) occupation.”
Israeli officials last Sunday said troops had uncovered a tunnel running from Gaza 450 meters into Israel and allegedly intended as a springboard for attacks.
In June 2006 a group of Hamas and other fighters entered into Israel through a cross-border tunnel and seized Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
He was released on October 18, 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Israel froze shipments of building materials to the Gaza Strip after discovering the underground tunnel last week.
The Gaza Strip has been under a severe economic blockade imposed by Israel since 2007.
The blockade was imposed following the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian elections and the subsequent 2007 clashes between Fatah and Hamas, which left Hamas in control of the Strip and Fatah in control of the West Bank.
The blockade has severely limited the imports and exports of the Gaza Strip and has led to frequent humanitarian crises and hardship for Gazans.
(Ma’an and Agencies – www.maannews.net)
Actions in the war and occupation of Palestine are becoming senseless. It is inopportune to build hosts of settler houses and to build a tunnel at this time. It’s as if neither side has any hopes anyone can help them find a solution. It represents, in this week of international meetings about Palestine, that events on the ground fly in the face of disingenuous international spin. That no one expects or believes in a solution.
So, no solution will be created.
Those of us watching are in dread. No future is the disaster waiting to suck all of us into a maelstrom. Lack of honesty, trust and action are its basis. We are as guilty as the rest, are we not?
The concept, and the defination of terms that the Israel intentionally refused to understand, is the main causes of these problems. But, all this I blamed the west and it allies.