Islamic Jihad terrorist killed in tunnel collapse

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza continue to search for ways to attack Israel, including by trying to dig tunnels underneath the Gaza border and into Jewish communities where they hope to murder Israeli civilians.

A Palestinian terrorist, a member of the Islamic Jihad terror organization, was killed on Monday in Gaza when the terror-tunnel he was working in collapsed.

Three others were wounded in the collapse.

Palestinian media reported that several other people were missing and searches were underway.

Several Palestinian terrorists from several factions were killed in a dozen recent incidents of tunnel collapses.

The latest such incident occurred earlier this month. One Islamic Jihad member was killed, and several other terror operatives were injured.

The wet winter weather, Egyptian operations against the tunnels and possible Israeli involvement were all indicated as possible causes for the tunnel collapses.

The Hamas terror organization is employing over 1,000 residents of Gaza in the digging of its cross-border tunnels, and is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly in wages. Each digger receives $300-400 a month.

Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels that it has used to penetrate Israel to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians and soldiers and 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, many times at the expense of innocent Gazans, from whom they steal building materials, which they use for military build-up.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News