The military wing of Hamas vowed to avenge the deaths of two militants killed by Israeli airstrikes, which were themselves a retaliation after a rocket was fired from Gaza into the Israeli border town of Sderot over the weekend. PhotoLt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said the tunnel destroyed on Sunday had been monitored by the Israelis for months. The military identified what it said was a tunnel belonging to Islamic Jihad, which sometimes rivals Hamas, the dominant force in Gaza, but joins it in battle against Israel. Up to a dozen Islamic Jihad militants were killed in the tunnel’s collapse, as were two Hamas militants carrying out what the group called a rescue mission. This time, the Israeli military used a new, quiet and unspecified method of neutralizing a tunnel, and said it knew of no casualties.

Source: New York Times December 10, 2017 16:07 UTC