BICOM

One Palestinian is missing and several trapped underground in the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border after Egypt deliberately flooded the border area which collapsed at least one underground tunnel.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, described the tunnel as “commercial,” but Yediot Ahronot reported yesterday that Egyptian officials believe Hamas is constructing ‘mega tunnels’ up to three kilometres long, which would be able to accommodate weapons-laden trucks.

Egypt has a long-standing policy of destroying the tunnels beneath the Gaza border into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Cairo accuses Hamas of using the tunnels to smuggle weapons and arms into Sinai for use by the ISIS-affiliated Sinai Province terror group, which has waged a long-standing armed campaign against President al-Sisi’s regime, persistently attacking Egyptian military forces in Sinai and inflicting serious casualties. In 2014, Egypt destroyed hundreds of tunnels, creating a buffer zone on its border. In 2015, Egyptian forces began digging work to flood the remaining tunnels.

Yesterday’s tunnel collapse comes after several Hamas operatives were killed in recent weeks following the collapse of several tunnels which Hamas intended to reach underneath the Gaza border into Israel. This underground network was a major feature of Hamas attacks on Israel during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Although Israel subsequently destroyed most of the tunnels, Hamas has admitted to rebuilding its underground capability in preparation for future attacks.

Egypt’s flooding of the latest Gaza tunnel also comes just a week after Cairo accused Hamas of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to assassinate Egypt’s public prosecutor last year. Hisham Barakat was killed when an explosion struck his motorcade in Cairo last June and is the most senior Egyptian official to be killed by Islamist terror groups. Egypt’s Interior Minister, Magdi Abdel Ghaffar said that Barakat’s murder had been ordered by Muslim Brotherhood figures in Turkey, but that “Hamas trained, prepared and oversaw the implementation” of the attack.