Israel warns Hamas not to foil its project

Israel warned Gaza's Hamas rulers yesterday not to try to foil its construction of a border wall designed to stop tunnels between the two sides.

It said it had mapped militant emplacements hidden under civilian sites in the Palestinian enclave that may be attacked in any new war. Hamas accused Israel of belligerence.

The unusually detailed Israeli threat followed a rocket launch on Tuesday which caused no damage in Israel and went unclaimed by Gazan groups. Israel responded with an air strike on a Hamas facility.

Such flare-ups have been relatively rare since the last Gaza war, in 2014, with Hamas mostly holding fire and reining in smaller militant factions.

But as Gaza's poverty and political drift deepens, both sides worry another conflict could erupt.

In September, Israel went public with a sensor-equipped underground wall being planted on its side of the 37 mile- (60 km) long border, a counter-measure developed after Hamas fighters used tunnels to blindside its troops during the war.

Israeli media published new disclosures by the military yesterday about the project, costing $1.1 billion and to be completed within two years under an accelerated schedule.