Gaza tunnel collapse kills two Hamas militants

GAZA CITY: A Palestinian fires his weapon in the air while mourners wait for the body of Rami Al-Areer, 24, a militant from the Izzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, a military wing of Hamas, who was killed with his colleague inside a tunnel east of Gaza, during his funeral in Gaza City yesterday. —AP

GAZA: Israeli paramilitary police officers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian who ran toward them brandishing a knife yesterday, police said. Police spopkeswoman Luba Samri said the 18-year-old Palestinian had got off a bus at a main West Bank junction and appeared suspicious to border policemen stationed there.

"The suspect did not heed their call to stop, continued to move in their direction and at one point whipped out a knife and began running towards them. The forces opened fire at the terrorist," Samri said. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the Palestinian had been killed, but had no further details on his identity. In recent months, there has been a significant ebb in what had been near-daily Palestinian street attacks that began in October 2015 in which 33 Israelis and two US citizens have been killed in knife, car-ramming and gun assaults.

Israeli forces have killed at least 230 Palestinians over the past 14 months. Israel says at least 156 of them were assailants. Others died during clashes and protests.

Palestinians have accused Israeli police and soldiers of using excessive force in many cases, saying assailants could have been stopped or detained without being killed. In several cases, Israel has opened investigations. Israel says one of the main causes of the violence is incitement by the Palestinian leadership, with young men encouraged to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation, frustrated by the almost 50-year-old Israeli occupation of the West Bank and annexation of East Jerusalem, territories which the Palestinians want for their own state.

Israel captured those lands in the 1967 Middle East war, and maintains tight restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in some areas, especially West Bank checkpoints that border Israel. The last round of peace talks between the sides collapsed in2014.

Militants killed

Two Hamas militants were killed and three are missing after a tunnel in the Gaza Strip collapsed, the Islamist group's military wing said yesterday. The Al-Qassam Brigades named the two killed as Rami Muneer Al-Arier and Ismail Abdul Kareem Shamali, saying they died "following the collapse of a resistance tunnel." A source close to Qassam said five militants were in the tunnel when it collapsed and efforts were continuing to find and rescue the other three.

Over the years, the Hamas rulers of Gaza have built a labyrinth of tunnels, including those crossing under the border with Israel, for use in any renewed conflict. Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008 and the territory has been under an Israeli blockade for a decade.

Attack tunnels were a key weapon for Hamas during the last conflict in 2014, with a number of surprise attacks inside Israeli territory. The group also built a vast network of tunnels under the border with Egypt to smuggle weapons and goods of all kinds but those have been severely disrupted by Cairo's establishment of a no-man's land along the frontier. In recent months, at least 23 Gazans have died in tunnel incidents, most of them Hamas militants. In the coming weeks, Israel's state comptroller is expected to submit the final version of a report on the government's lack of preparedness for the threat from infiltration tunnels in 2014. - Agencies