4 Palestinians killed in flooded Hamas tunnel

Another four Palestinians have died while digging tunnels for the Hamas terror organization.  

Four Palestinians were killed in a smuggling tunnel over the weekend after it was flooded by the Egyptian army.

Three of the bodies were recovered by emergency personnel after they went missing in a tunnel that runs between Gaza and Egypt.

Search efforts were ongoing Sunday for a fourth person, who is still missing.

The Al-Aqsa Radio, run by the Hamas terror group, reported that the tunnel caved in after the Egyptian military flooded it with water. There was no comment from the Egyptian army.

The Egyptian army periodically floods smuggling tunnels running into the Sinai Peninsula, which are used to smuggle terrorists and weapons in and out of Gaza.

Tens of Palestinians have been killed by collapsed tunnels while working in them.

The IDF has warned the residents of Gaza that this occupation is hazardous.

Egyptian operations against the tunnels and possible Israeli involvement are believed to be causes for the tunnel collapses.

Hamas employs over 1,000 residents of Gaza to dig its cross-border tunnels and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly in wages. Each digger receives $300-400 a month.

Hamas has also built a sophisticated network of tunnels that it has used to penetrate Israel in order to carry out terrorist attacks against civilians and soldiers and to smuggle goods and weapons in and out of Gaza through the Sinai Peninsula.

The IDF destroyed most of the tunnels during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, but Hamas has since been working vigorously to rebuild the network. The IDF has exposed several of them.

By: World Israel News Staff
AP contributed to this report

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