Hamas rebuilds nearly all Gaza tunnels destroyed in 2014 war: report

The Palestinian Hamas organization has rebuilt most of the underground tunnels destroyed by the Israeli army in the 2014 war, the Ha'aretz daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the daily, Hamas members have resumed digging attack tunnels close to the Israeli border fence shortly after the 50-day war ended in late August 2014.

"Hamas has invested, and continues to invest, considerable efforts and finances into the tunnel project," the report stated.

The report also stated that, based on assessments by Israeli security officials, "it is reasonable to assume that the number of tunnels beneath the border at present time is close to that on the eve of Protective Edge," referring to the Israeli military code name for the war.

Israel discovered 32 tunnels during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, a third of which crossed into Israeli territory. Israeli officials said the military's ground campaign in the enclave, in which more than 2000 Palestinians and 70 Israeli soldiers were killed, was aimed, among others, to destroy these tunnels and prevent militants from carrying out attacks against Israelis living in communities near the Gaza border, as well as end the launch of rockets towards Israeli communities.

The Israeli army announced at the end of the war it had managed to destroy all of the tunnels.

Israeli leaders said after the 2014 war that they will look into a technological solution that would enable security forces to detect tunnels being dug near the border fence, at an approximate cost of 700 million U.S. dollars, but the current defense budget does not include such an allocation, according to the daily's report.

The report suggested it is possible that the Israeli-Gaza front will be set ablaze once more, amid the ongoing wave of violence between Israel and the Palestinians across the Israeli country and the West Bank and east Jerusalem territories, which started in October and claimed the lives of 23 Israelis, one U.S. citizen and more than 140 Palestinians.

Hamas leaders had recently urged Palestinians in the West Bank to carry out suicide bombing attacks against Israelis, which were common practice of resistance in the mid-1990's and early 2000's, in the days of the second Intifada (armed uprising.)

Hamas clashed with the Fatah movement, governing the Palestinians in the West Bank, in 2007 and had since took over the Gaza Strip. In the past couple of years there have been ongoing attempts to bridge the gaps between the two groups and reach reconciliation.

On a related matter, an Israeli opposition lawmaker on Monday protested that no security barrier was erected between southern Israeli communities and the Gaza Strip enclave, despite promises by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon to do so.

Haim Yellin, a lawmaker from the center Yesh Atid party who served as head of the southern Israeli Eshkol regional council, wrote a letter to Netanyahu on the matter on Monday.

"After the war, you convened the mayors of the communities and promised not to allow Hamas to get stronger and said that within a few days we'd see bulldozers on the ground starting to build the barrier," Yellin wrote in the letter.

"A year and a half has passed, and terrorists can easily cross under and above ground into the communities," he added. Endit