Gaza Tunnel collapse kill Palestinian Resistance Commander

Gaza Tunnel collapse kill Palestinian Resistance Commander

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, July 10, (APP/AFP) -

A tunnel collapse in the Gaza Strip on Sunday killed a member

of militant group Islamic Jihad's armed wing, it said, in

the latest in a series of such incidents.

The collapse occurred in the northern Gaza Strip,

the Al-Quds Brigades said in a statement, without

providing further details.

It identified the person killed as Ibrahim Hassan Al-Masri,

28, of Al-Quds's northern command.

The northern Gaza Strip, run by Islamist movement Hamas,

shares a border with Israel.

Hamas as well as Islamic Jihad and other groups maintain

a tunnel network within the Palestinian enclave, both for

smuggling and military purposes.

Since January, more than a dozen Gazans have been killed

in tunnel collapses.

Israel accuses militants in Gaza of rebuilding tunnels that

could be used to attack it, with three wars having been fought

between them since 2008.

Clashes broke out on the Gaza border in May as Israel revealed

a new tunnel reaching into its territory from the

Palestinian enclave, after another was discovered in mid-April.

The violence in May was the worst flare-up between the army

and Hamas since a devastating 2014 war, with Hamas

attacking forces operating nearby with mortar rounds and

Israel responding with air raids and tank fire, which

resulted in the death of a Gaza woman.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli blockade for around

a decade and its border with Egypt also remains largely closed.

Egypt has also destroyed Palestinian tunnels used to

smuggle in commercial goods, cash, people and, allegedly, weapons.