IDF soldiers from the Golani and Yahalom units located a booby-trapped Hamas tunnel underneath a Rafah compound which formerly served as a kindergarten, the military reported on Friday.

The tunnel shaft was 100 meters away from a compound that was previously used as a school.

Fighters from the Yahalom Unit destroyed the underground passage, which was dozens of meters long and led to a central point in the tunnel network. The underground route was also booby-trapped, the military added.

Contradicting reports on remaining Hamas tunnels

The discovery of the tunnel in the southern Gazan city comes a few days after security sources said that the Israeli military has only destroyed a quarter of all the tunnels in the enclave, even adding that a number of smuggling tunnels crossing from Egypt to the Gaza are still intact.
The terror tunnel shaft located by Israeli soldiers by a kindergarten (credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
In January, however, Yoni Ben Menachem, an expert on Middle Eastern affairs from the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told The Media Line that 40% of Hamas tunnels remained in Gaza.

Late last month , the IDF uncovered a network of tunnels running for a full kilometer, which they hadn't found around the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza.

Shortly before their recent announcement of uncovering of the tunnel shaft, the IDF said that they had stuck the head of the sniper fire for Hamas’s Tel al-Sultan Battalion, Ahmad Iyad Muhammad Farhat, also in Rafah.

Yonah Jeremy Bob and Yuval Levy contributed to this report.