Israeli text messages warn Gazans not to help Hamas build tunnels

Special to WorldTribune.com

GAZA CITY — Israel’s military is said to have sent telephone messages to the Gaza Strip warning residents against cooperating with the Hamas regime.

Hamas said the Israel Army sent messages on the cell phones that urged Palestinians not to obey the Islamist regime in the Gaza Strip.

An entrance to a tunnel exposed by the Israeli military is seen near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, just outside the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 13. /Reuters/Amir Cohen — An entrance to a Hamas-built tunnel is seen near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, just outside the southern Gaza Strip, on Oct. 13. /Reuters/Amir Cohen

Hamas said the messages focused on Hamas efforts to construct tunnels that would penetrate Israel.

“The messages claimed that tunnels that were built by Hamas underground between Gaza and the Israeli-occupied territories cost millions of dollars that were supposed to be spent on the Gaza people,” Hamas said.

In a statement on Oct. 19, Hamas said the Israeli military sent both voice and text messages to the Palestinians. The messages asserted that Hamas sought to use the tunnels to attack the Jewish state.

“This was not the first time the Israel Army sent such incitement messages against Hamas,” Hamas said.

The messages were sent by the Israeli military on Oct. 18 in wake of the discovery of a 1.7 kilometer tunnel that began east of the Gaza city of Khan
Yunis and penetrated at least 300 meters within Israel. The tunnel was
discovered in wake of unprecedented shipments of construction material from
Israel to the Gaza Strip.

“To the residents of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Army warns you against
obeying the orders of the terrorist Hamas or having any contact with it,”
the Israeli message was quoted as saying.

The Hamas Interior Ministry said scores of Gazans received the Israeli
message. Israel has not confirmed the Hamas report.

Hamas has reported increased attempts to foment unrest in the Gaza
Strip. They included the announcement of an opposition group that Hamas
asserted was linked to Egyptian intelligence, which helped close down or
destroy close to 500 smuggling tunnels along the border of Egypt’s Sinai
Peninsula.

“We have not intervened in internal Egyptian affairs, neither in Sinai
nor anywhere else in Egypt,” Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said.

Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, Israeli text messages warn Gazans not to help Hamas build tunnels, Khan Yunis

Israeli text messages warn Gazans not to help Hamas build tunnels added by World Tribune on October 21, 2013
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