Israel repels Hamas tunnel incursion

By John Reed in Gaza City

The skirmish came as Israel and Hamas both said they would hold fire for five hours on Thursday for a “humanitarian window” proposed by the UN to repair damaged water and power infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and give its residents hiding at home or in makeshift shelters a respite from 10 days of bombardment that have killed more than 220 Palestinians.

Both Israel’s military and pro-Hamas al-Aqsa radio carried news on Thursday morning of the foiled attempt to breach the heavily guarded buffer zone by 13 fighters who exited a tunnel burrowed from southern Gaza to near Sufa in Israel. The Israel Defense Forces said it had prevented a “substantial terror attack” and the tunnel was the fifth of its kind it had found leading into Israel in the past year and a half.

“They were armed to the teeth, and identified by our surveillance capabilities,” said Peter Lerner, a military spokesman. “They realised they had been identified, so they went back on their tracks and entered into the tunnel.”

Initial media reports and the IDF said some of the men escaped and some were killed, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties.

Overnight, Israel continued its bombardment of targets in Gaza, where local media reported that the targets included the house of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, east of Gaza City.

Gaza health officials said on Thursday morning that 223 people had been killed and 1,670 injured since Israel began its military operation, dubbed Protective Edge, on July 7. The dead have included four young boys killed on a beach in Gaza City’s port area by two Israeli bombs on Wednesday afternoon in an attack witnessed by several foreign and Palestinian journalists. The IDF said it was investigating the incident.

On Thursday morning three Palestinians were killed by an IDF tank shell when it hit a house in Rafah, southern Gaza, health officials said

Inside Israel, sirens sounded on Thursday morning warning of rockets fired from Gaza to several cities in the country’s coastal heartland and Beer Sheva.

The EU on Thursday expressed concern over what it called the “indiscriminate targeting of civilians” in the Gaza Strip, and called on both sides to de-escalate the conflict.

At the UN’s urging, Israel agreed on Wednesday evening to hold fire during the humanitarian window. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement reported by Gaza media on Thursday morning that the Palestinian territory’s militant factions had agreed for a “calming” of the conflict between 10am and 3pm.

Operation Protective Edge has uprooted thousands of Palestinians fleeing the threat of military raids, emptied Gaza’s streets of traffic and confined most people to their homes during the normally busy holy month of Ramadan.

UN officials said that in addition to providing humanitarian assistance, they hoped the pause in fighting would allow essential repairs for power lines from Israel into Gaza and water wells, reservoirs and pipes damaged during the fighting between the IDF and Hamas over past 10 days. The war damage has worsened water and power shortages in Gaza, which were already acute before the fighting began.

“If the humanitarian window works, this will be an opportunity for people who are scared for their lives to get out and do things that need to be done, particularly on water and power repairs,” said Robert Turner, director of operations in Gaza for UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency.

As the humanitarian pause began on Thursday morning, traffic returned to Gaza streets, businesses reopened and people emerged to shop or withdraw money from ATMs.

This is the second attempt to calm fighting in the current Israel-Hamas conflict. On Tuesday Israel held fire for six hours after Egypt floated a ceasefire plan aimed at ending fighting, but the halt in fighting collapsed after Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired volleys of rockets into Israel and the IDF resumed its bombardment.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.