GAZA CITY: A Palestinian group announced on Friday another five fighters had been killed when Israel blew up a tunnel from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of dead to 12. The group said five more men trapped in the tunnel were dead, naming them. Israel had on Monday carried out a “controlled” explosion on the tunnel crossing the border. “We announce the death of five new heroes of the Jerusalem Brigades in Zionist bombing,” the group said in a statement, referring to its military wing.
Two of the 12 dead belonged to the armed wing of Hamas, with the other 10 from another armed group.
Since Monday’s explosion, Israel has refused to allow the Palestinian Civil Defence Authority access to the site to search for survivors.
The International Committee of the Red Cross had asked Israel to enable searches in the tunnel, according to a statement from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which liaises with the Palestinian territories.
COGAT commander Yoav Mordechai told the head of ICRC in Israel that the Israeli authorities would “not enable searches in the security perimeter in the Gaza Strip, without progress on the issue of the Israeli captives and missing soldiers.”
Israel is seeking the return of two civilians as well as the bodies of two soldiers, believed to have been killed in the 2014 war in Gaza.
The Palestinian Civil Defence Authority accused Israel of “blackmail,” saying such conditions were “in contravention of all international laws and agreements.”
In 2011 Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier who had been held captive for five years.
Tunnels dug by Hamas were a key issue in the last war with Israel in 2014, but discoveries of those stretching into the Jewish state have since been rare.
The two have fought three wars since 2008, while the Jewish state maintains a crippling blockade of Gaza.
Hamas called Monday’s incident “a dangerous escalation,” but Israel said it was not seeking a further round of conflict.
— AFP
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