Terrorists Tunneling Towards Israeli Civilians

Arab terrorists in Gaza are digging tunnels towards Jewish communities in southern Israel, according to General Security Service (Shabak) chief Yuval Diskin. Diskin says that the terrorist organizations have dug a network of tunnels from Gaza towards Israeli territory. The purpose of the tunnels is to detonate large charges under Israeli civilian and military targets. Israel's security arms believe a number of tunnels, in various states of completion, already exist. Diskin says that underneath what he termed the "relative quiet" on the Gaza front in recent months, the terrorists have been digging tunnels. Unlike those they dug in the past, which ran mostly towards Egyptian territory and were meant to smuggle weapons and personnel in from the Sinai area, these tunnels are being dug towards Israeli territory.It was a similar tunnel that Hamas and its allies used to enter an army camp near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Gaza, Israel and Egypt last June, when they abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit and killed two other soldiers. A resident of one of the kibbutzim near Gaza recently reported that the inhabitants have been hearing the sound of hammer blows underground, although it was not clear from where precisely they were coming. The residents, he says, are convinced that they are hearing the sound of an Arab terrorist tunnel being dug underneath their feet. The civilians in the area are concerned that terrorists might detonate explosives underneath one of the Jewish communities or infiltrate through the tunnel and carry out an attack against a civilian community.