As Hamas Tunnels Back Into Israel, Gazans Fear They’ll Be Caught in the Crossfire

KHUZAA, Gaza Strip — The attack tunnels Hamas has constructed running from Gaza into Israel have long sown deep fears in the communities on the Israeli side of the border fence, where residents talk of nightmares about Palestinian militants popping up into their dining rooms or kindergartens.

Now, the tunnels are keeping others up at night: the Palestinians who live on the Gaza side of the fence.

People living on the edges of Gaza border towns, like the Israelis a few miles away, complain of hearing surreptitious digging in the wee hours, and voice a parallel anxiety about the tunnels being rapidly rebuilt near their homes becoming targets for Israeli strikes. They are raising unusually harsh — albeit anonymous, for fear of reprisal — criticism of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza, for putting people at risk. (They also sought anonymity to avoid their neighborhoods being targeted for Israel strikes.)

“Dear God — we will be torn apart,” said a 42-year-old woman in Khuzaa, a village near the fence. She spoke only on the condition she be identified only as Umm Nidal — Arabic for mother of Nidal, her eldest son — for fear of reprisal by Hamas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/world/middleeast/hamas-tunnels-gaza-strip-israel.html?_r=0