At least 10 Palestinians have been killed in a number of tunnel collapses in Gaza in recent weeks.
Yet another Palestinian was killed while working in a tunnel in Gaza.
Arab media reported that a 24-year-old Palestinian died as the tunnel he was in collapsed, possibly as a result of the Egyptian army’s flooding of the tunnels.
This is at least the fourth such tunnel collapse in recent weeks which have killed at least 10 Palestinians, mostly Hamas terrorists.
Heavy rainfall and flooding caused at least one of the collapses, while ongoing Egyptian efforts to flood the tunnels have further weakened them.
Speaking in the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva on Saturday, Yuval Steinitz, minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, touched upon the security coordination between Israel and Egypt, which, he said, is “better than ever.”
Alluding to the recent collapse of several Hamas terror tunnels, he said Egypt has been flooding the newly built Hamas terror tunnels at Gaza’s southern border, largely at Israel’s request. His office later claimed the remarks were misinterpreted.
Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels that it has used to penetrate Israel to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians and soldiers. Israel destroyed most of the tunnels during the summer of 2014, but Hamas has since been working vigorously to rebuild the network, many times at the expense of Gazans, from whom they steal building materials which they use for military build-up.