In a Blow to Hamas, Israel destroys tunnel from Gaza as Jerusalem tensions grow

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In a Blow to Hamas, Israel destroys tunnel from Gaza as Jerusalem tensions grow

By Isabel Kershner
Updated

Jerusalem: Israel says it has destroyed a tunnel dug by Hamas from Gaza into Israeli territory, dealing a substantial blow to one of the main strategic assets in the Islamic militant group's arsenal.

It was the second cross-border tunnel in six weeks that the Israeli military said it had detected and put out of use with new technologies, leading officials to predict the end of the cross-border threat from such tunnels.

"We have reached new technological capabilities in the struggle against terror tunnels," Israeli Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said in a statement.

Referring to Israeli border communities, he added, "I hope that in the coming months the tunnel threat to the residents of the 'Gaza envelope' will become a thing of the past."

A Palestinian protester throws back a teargas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes on the Israeli border with Gaza, on Sunday

A Palestinian protester throws back a teargas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes on the Israeli border with Gaza, on SundayCredit: AP

More immediately, the action against the tunnel injected another element of uncertainty into the simmering tensions over US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Lebanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas and water cannons into crowds as thousands of protesters chanted slogans against Trump's orders near the US Embassy in Beirut.

Some threw rocks and set tires and a large rubbish container on fire outside the embassy's highly secured gated compound in a suburb north of the capital. Some protesters tried to rip the barbed wire off a fence, but they were repelled by the security forces, who fired a barrage of tear gas and sent them running, with many choking from the smoke, vomiting or fainting.

Clashes on Friday and Saturday between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces in many parts of the West Bank and along the border with Gaza were not as huge as many had feared but Trump's decision, which dealt a blow to the idea of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, has been widely condemned across the Arab world and beyond.

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Palestinians clash with Israeli troops following a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the West Bank City of Nablus, on Sunday,

Palestinians clash with Israeli troops following a protest against US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the West Bank City of Nablus, on Sunday,Credit: AP

The Arab League, which held an emergency meeting in Cairo, on Sunday denounced Trump's announcement as a "dangerous violation of international law."

Germany and France criticised the move, and North Korea denounced Trump for what it called his "reckless, wicked act," according to the state-run KCNA news agency.

US President Donald Trump holds up the proclamation on Jerusalem next to Vice President Mike Pence last week.

US President Donald Trump holds up the proclamation on Jerusalem next to Vice President Mike Pence last week.Credit: Bloomberg

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, 10,000 people rallied outside the US Embassy in the capital, Jakarta.

Indonesia's president, Joko Widodo, has said that Trump's move was a violation of UN resolutions. The country has been a longtime supporter of Palestinians and has no diplomatic ties with Israel. In a statement, Indonesia's Prosperous Justice Party described the decision as "a form of humiliation and provocation against Muslims all over the world."

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris on Sunday.

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris on Sunday. Credit: AP

The Taliban, Hamas and Shia extremist leaders also vowed bloodshed after the move.

Meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he "firmly and clearly" condemned all kinds of attacks against Israel in recent hours and days, but he reaffirmed his "disapproval" of Trump's move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"The sooner the Palestinians come to grips with reality, the sooner we will find peace," Netanyahu said. He added that Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for 3000 years.

"There's nothing new that Mr Netanyahu considers Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel," Macron said. "What's new is that a powerful outside country unilaterally recognises something that goes against international law."

Macron told Netanyahu that he needed to make gestures to the Palestinians to break the impasse between the two sides.

"I asked Prime Minister Netanyuhu to make some courageous gestures towards the Palestinians to get out of the current impasse," Macron said, suggesting that a freeze of construction in settlements could be a first step.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, noted the relatively low intensity of the backlash so far as she defended Trump's declaration on Sunday.

"Everybody said the sky was going to fall," she said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN. "The sky is still up there, it hasn't fallen."

Arguing that Trump's decision could "move the ball forward" on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, she said the administration "did not talk about boundaries or borders" of Israeli sovereignty within the contested city "for a reason. And that's because whatever is East Jerusalem or any other part, that's between the Palestinians and the Israelis. That's not for the Americans to decide."

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the tunnel destroyed on Sunday had been monitored by the Israelis for months. The decision to incapacitate it now, he said, despite the current tensions over Jerusalem, stemmed from what he called "the unknown part of the equation."

"Those who are responsible for protecting Israeli civilians have to decide every day that goes by if it is worth waiting," he said. The military, he added, "does not seek to escalate the situation."

During the 2014 Gaza war, several Israeli soldiers were ambushed and killed by militants who emerged from underground tunnels. Israeli authorities say the tunnels violate Israeli sovereignty and threaten civilians living in the border area.

The latest to be destroyed extended hundreds of yards into Israeli territory, according to the military, and ended in open farmland about a mile from the nearest Israeli village.

Israel has invested heavily in trying to thwart tunnelling. It recently went public with its plans for a subterranean barrier, has been using virtual-reality systems to simulate fighting in tunnels and is training troops in mock-ups of maze-like underground networks.

Military and defence officials did not elaborate on the new tunnel detection and demolition system, but said it was a combined effort involving intelligence agencies, combat and engineering forces. Lieberman attributed the recent successes to the military, the Ministry of Defense and the defense industries.

The previous tunnel operation was in late October. The military identified what it said was a tunnel belonging to Islamic Jihad, which sometimes rivals Hamas, the dominant force in Gaza, but joins it in battle against Israel.

That time, Israel destroyed the tunnel by bombing it. Up to a dozen Islamic Jihad militants were killed in the tunnel's collapse, as were two Hamas militants carrying out what the group called a rescue mission. It was the deadliest cross-border event since the 50 days of fighting in 2014.

This time, the Israeli military used a new, quiet and unspecified method of neutralising a tunnel, and said it knew of no casualties.

Meanwhile there were some further disturbances over Trump's unilateral declaration.

The military wing of Hamas vowed to avenge the deaths of two militants killed by Israeli airstrikes, which were themselves a retaliation after a rocket was fired from Gaza into the Israeli border town of Sderot over the weekend. It smashed the window of an empty kindergarten.

"Our battle for Jerusalem continues hour by hour, over the ground and underground," Hamas' military wing said in a statement on Sunday.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited control, a Hamas leader joined his organisation's calls for a "Jerusalem intifada," or uprising.

The mainstream Fatah party led by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority also called for protests after Trump's declaration and has disseminated some graphic images via social media to whip up emotions. Abbas will not be meeting US Vice President Mike Pence when Pence visits the region later this month as scheduled.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, a Palestinian man in his 20s stabbed an Israeli security guard at the central bus station, severely wounding him, police and medics said. The assailant was arrested at the scene.

A surge of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car ramming attacks that began in October 2015 has claimed the lives of about 40 Israelis and others, including two American visitors. More than 250 Palestinians were killed during the same period, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, mostly while carrying out or trying to carry out attacks, by Israel's count.

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Most of the attacks on Israelis were carried out by so-called lone wolves, acting without the assistance of known Palestinian organisations and, in many cases, without any particular political affiliation. The violence had largely petered out over the past year.

New York Times, Bloomberg

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