(JTA) – The Israeli army destroyed a tunnel built by the terrorist group Hamas that crossed from Gaza into Israel. The tunnel, nearly a mile long, originated in the Khan Younis area of the central Gaza Strip and stretched more than 200 yards into Israeli territory. It branched off in several places to connect to the network of Hamas tunnels under Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said, and was equipped with power and telephone lines. The IDF said in a statement that it was the 15th tunnel that it has located and destroyed in the past year, part of a network of Hamas tunnels designed to enable the terrorist group to launch attacks on southern Israeli communities. The IDF spokesman’s office said that Hamas invested some $3 million worth of cement and electrical equipment, as well as hours of labor into the tunnel. “The Hamas terrorist organization continues to invest considerable resources in establishing infrastructures aimed at harming Israeli citizens. This economic investment, which comes at the expense of the well-being of residents, is a sign for the Strip’s inhabitants that their regime prefers to invest in terror rather than in other things,” said the spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis.

CAP: An Israeli army officer looks at a destroyed Palestinian Islamic Jihad tunnel, leading from Gaza into Israel, near the southern Israeli kibbutz of Kissufim, January 2018. (Jack Guez/AFP/POOL)