Palestinian Police in Hebron Reveal Hamas Tunnels

By The Media Line news agency

The Palestinian Police have discovered three tunnels Hamas has dug in the West Bank city of Hebron, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported over the weekend.

This is the first time that tunnels dug by Hamas have been discovered outside the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Police suspect two of the tunnels were used for concealment of weapons and as an explosives workshop, while the third - longer one - was supposed to be used for terrorist attacks against Israeli cars passing above.

The tunnels were discovered in the past two weeks during a Palestinian Police operation, which included special Palestinian forces that had recently undergone American-supervised exercises in Jordan.

"This was an attempt to imitate tunnels dug by Hizbullah in southern Lebanon," Palestinian Authority security services head in Hebron Samih A-Sifi said, according to Haaretz.

The entrance to the longest tunnel was found in a residential house in west Hebron, overlooking a road used by Israeli residents of nearby Kiryat Arb'a. The tunnel was already 100 meters long, and local residents said that in the past five months they had seen men carrying sacks of dirt from the premises.

Since the beginning of the Palestinian police operation in Hebron two weeks ago, more than 200 men - mostly members of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad - have been arrested.

The Palestinian security services revealed they found explosive devices, weapons and inciting material, which called for the assassination of senior officials in the P.A.

Meanwhile, tension in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel is continuing to build.

The Palestinians fired approximately 22 rockets at Israel over the weekend. One rocket hit an electric pole near a house in Sderot on Friday, lightly wounding an 80-year-old woman. Another rocket landed between houses in a kibbutz in Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, damaging a number of homes.

"The Israeli government sees the firing of missiles and attacks from Gaza as a basic violation of our understanding and we will not tolerate it," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

The Israeli Air Force responded Sunday morning with an attack in the northern Gaza strip, killing four men who were on their way to launch rockets.

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