There’s no ignoring it: The Gaza border is heating up. The explosive device aimed at Israeli soldiers patrolling the border Saturday and the air force’s strike in response clearly show this. The background for this tension is apparently linked to the complexities of Hamas’ situation, in particular Israel’s effort to destroy Hamas’ attack tunnels.

When Israel began construction of an anti-tunnel wall along the Gaza Strip about a year ago, defense officials warned that Hamas might heat up the border to disrupt the project, or might use the tunnels before they could be destroyed. Since then, the border has been more or less quiet and the intensive work on the wall has gone on uninterrupted.

But in recent weeks something has changed. No less than four clusters of roadside bombs have been set off against Israeli soldiers patrolling the fence. In one case, four soldiers were wounded while trying to disarm a bomb planted beside a Palestinian flag.

The army is still not saying directly who was responsible for the bombs of the past month. A few possibilities have been raised, among them extremist Salafi groups and rogue Hamas activists – or perhaps even Hamas itself planned the operations.

Read the full story at Haaretz.