Palestinian militants in Gaza shelled Israeli troops yesterday as the heaviest round of crossborder fighting since the end of the 2014 war continued into its third day, despite claims from Hamas that a truce had been restored.
The violence began on Tuesday when Palestinian militants opened fire on an Israeli army unit near the border. They have since carried out more than half a dozen attacks with mortars and small arms.
The Israeli army has carried out two rounds of airstrikes, mostly around the southern city of Rafah. A woman was killed in the bombing yesterday, Palestinian media said. There were no casualties reported on the Israeli side.
Moussa Abu Marzouq, a senior Hamas leader, said late on Wednesday that Egyptian officials had helped to broker a new ceasefire. “They responded immediately and seriously, and returned things to what they were,” he said. The continued fighting yesterday suggested that the truce announcement was premature.
Tensions have been building since the Israeli army discovered a tunnel last month that ran from Gaza into Israeli territory. It destroyed the passage, and soldiers have been searching for more.
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The army announced yesterday that it had identified a second tunnel, which will be blown up in the coming days. An army spokesman would not say where it was located, but analysts said the recent shelling from Gaza was probably intended to stop Israeli soldiers destroying it.
Hamas has spent millions of dollars on the tunnels, and at least a dozen members of its military wing have been killed in construction accidents this year. It regards them as providing a tactical advantage: one raid on an army base in 2014 killed five Israeli soldiers.
Israeli officers, however, have recently hinted at a new “technological solution” that allows them to find and destroy the tunnels, although they refused to give details.