Israel warplanes target Gaza border tunnels
Israeli warplanes on Saturday bombed tunnels beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, killing two Palestinian men, after militants fired mortar rounds into Israel from the coastal territory, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian medical workers.
The men were the first fatalities in the conflict between the militant group Hamas and Israel in nearly two months. Witnesses said the men were involved in digging underground passages of the kind used to smuggle weapons and commercial goods into Gaza. Their bodies were recovered about six hours after the airstrikes.
Fighting in and near Gaza has dropped significantly since Israel halted a 22-day air and ground offensive Jan. 18. The operation damaged Hamas’ military wing, but Israeli officials say weapons smuggling from Egypt has continued.
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office March 31, Hamas and other Islamic militant groups all but halted their attacks and worked to regroup their battered forces.
Militants broke the relative calm Thursday, firing a rocket into southern Israel. The Israeli air force responded Friday with two strikes, the first against the tunnels in about six weeks. No casualties were reported on either side.
On Saturday, two mortar shells from Gaza fell harmlessly in an open field in southern Israel, police said. The Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group loosely allied with Hamas, said it fired the rounds at an Israeli army patrol. The airstrikes followed; the military said it hit three tunnels near Rafah, a city on the Egypt-Gaza border.
Eleven Israelis and more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the winter offensive. Israel launched it to try to quell years of rocket fire from Gaza.
In mid-2007, Israel and Egypt tightened an economic blockade of Gaza after Hamas, which had won Palestinian elections in early 2006, forcibly ousted its secular Fatah rivals from the territory. Since the winter offensive, Egypt has offered to broker a formal cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but it has found little support on either side.
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Abu Alouf is a special correspondent.
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