Israel announced on Sunday that it had destroyed in the Gaza Strip an undersea tunnel used by the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Israeli military spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters that the tunnel, the first of its kind discovered by Israeli intelligence, was hit on June 3 in the north of the strip as Israeli aircraft pounded over a dozen extremist targets in Gaza.
He said that the tunnel ran from a Hamas military facility into the Mediterranean sea, "a few dozen meters away" at a depth underwater of two to three meters.
"It could have facilitated hostile activity against the state of Israel," he said, adding that the tunnel's underwater exit was about three kilometers (two miles) from Israel's border.
He said that the tunnel had been used in Hamas training and was "operational".
He said it was probable there were more like it not yet located by Israel.
"We continue to monitor using all our operational, technical and intelligence capabilities that we have at our disposal," he added.
A senior Israeli military official, speaking anonymously in line with protocol, said Hamas has dozens of frogmen and the assumption is that there are other undersea tunnels. He said they had diving gear that does not leave a trace above water.
Channel 10 TV's military correspondent said the entrance point of the tunnel was inside a Gaza house enabling Hamas to evade suspicion by entering the building in civilian clothes and once inside put on their diving suits and gear up with weapons.
The station said Hamas has invested millions to build the tunnels.
Israel has placed a high priority on eliminating the tunnel threat since Hamas gunmen infiltrated Israel during the 2014 war.
Although they did not manage to reach civilian areas, the infiltrations caught Israel off guard, with one attack killing five soldiers and terrifying the local population.
There was no immediate word from Hamas, which rarely comments on specific strikes on its infrastructure.
