Israeli jets strike Gaza smuggling tunnels

May 9, 2010, 23:23 GMT

Gaza - Israeli military jets fired missiles along the border area between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, where hundreds of smuggling tunnels have been dug by Palestinians under the border, Islamic Hamas movement security sources said early Monday.

Israeli F-16 warplanes fired one missile at a tunnel under the borders east of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, sources said.

Hamas security sources said the jets also struck the inoperative Gaza airport, which stopped flights at the beginning of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel in late September 2000.

Medical sources said that no casualties were reported in the two airraids.

The Israeli airstrikes on southern Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by the Hamas movement since June 2007, came after unknown Gaza militants fired a makeshift projectile that landed in southern Israel. No damages were reported.

Israel accuses Gaza militant groups of using the tunnels to smuggle weapons they use in carrying out attacks against Israel. However, the Palestinians say most of the tunnels are used to smuggle goods, including food products and fuel.

They said the tunnels were dug to defy more than three years of a tight Israeli blockade imposed on the salient after Hamas seized control of the enclave in June 2007.

The Gaza Strip had witnesses a relative calm over the past three weeks, where Israel announced in March that it would harshly respond to any rocket is fired from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel.