Hamas says tunnel Israel discovered in Gaza "was old and used"

The Islamic Hamas movement said Monday that a tunnel discovered by Israel recently was not new and that it had been used during the 2014 Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

A Hamas-related website, al-Majd, quoted an unidentified senior Hamas official as saying that the tunnel, going from Gaza into Israel, which Israel said it had recently discovered, "is an old tunnel that was used before."

During the summer of 2014, Israel waged a large-scale air and ground military operation on the Gaza Strip militants that lasted 51 days, leaving 2,200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis dead, as well as large destruction.

"The aim of making the declaration in the Israeli media is to say that discovering the tunnel was a big achievement in order to keep the American financial support to the Israeli project of fighting tunnels," the official said.

Over the past few months, more than 20 Palestinian militants died in tunnels that collapsed across the Gaza Strip. Hamas leaders said digging tunnels was a preparation for any upcoming Israeli wars on Gaza.

However, Hamas leaders said they are not interested in any war with Israel, "but if Israel wages a war on Gaza, Hamas and the armed resistance will have the right to defend themselves and to defend the people in Gaza." Endit