Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Hamas Terror Tunnel Discovered Under UN School In Gaza

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Hamas terror tunnel was discovered under a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip.

The tunnel was discovered on Oct. 15 by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which runs the school, and Israeli authorities were notified, the UNRWA said in a statement released on Saturday.

The school was immediately closed and the tunnel sealed, according to the statement. The school reopened 10 days later.

“The presence of a tunnel underneath an UNRWA installation, which enjoys inviolability under international law, is unacceptable. It places children and Agency staff at risk,” the UNRWA said in the statement.

“The Agency again demands full respect for the neutrality and inviolability of United Nations premises at all times. Any activities or conduct that put beneficiaries and staff alike at risk, and undermine the ability of UNRWA staff to provide assistance to Palestine refugees in safety and security, must cease,” the statement also said.

It is the second time this year that a Hamas tunnel has been discovered under a United Nations-supported school in Gaza. A tunnel also was found under a different school in June, Ynet reported.

Hamas has used a network of tunnels running from Gaza to southern Israel to launch attacks on Israel and to kidnap Israeli soldiers into the coastal strip.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.