Israeli Fighter Jet Image by Getty Images

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli fighter jets destroyed a terrorist tunnel under construction in Gaza.

The one-kilometer-long tunnel bombed in Gazan territory on Saturday night was located a few yards from the Erez humanitarian and pedestrian border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The tunnel intended to extend under the crossing and as far as an Israeli community in southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

It is the ninth terror tunnel in recent weeks to be located with new Israeli technology and then destroyed, the IDF said. It is the first time that such a tunnel was discovered and attacked before it had crossed into Israeli territory. It is also the first time that the tunnel was attacked with air strikes, since it did not reach into Israeli territory, instead of being flooded so that it could not be used again.

“The terrorist tunnels prove the Hamas terrorist organization’s cynicism toward the residents of the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a statement.

“Hamas continues to invest enormous resources in building terrorist tunnels and sabotaging the humanitarian efforts that the State of Israel and other countries are offering residents of the Gaza Strip, instead of investing in developing the Strip and providing for the welfare to its residents,” the statement said.

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