As part of its ongoing clampdown on smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian army uncovered six tunnels over the weekend that started inside a mosque (Arabic link) on the Egyptian side of the border.

A military spokesman said in a statement, on the official page of the Armed Forces, today – Sunday – that the troops succeeded in discovering and destroying of a number of tunnels inside the mosque in question and in the surroundings (including) a tunnel behind the toilet and a tunnel behind the pulpit of the mosque.

The army dubbed the tunnels “a crime against holy places (Hebrew link).” The mosque is located in the Saladin Gate area of Rafah.

On April 25, the military arrested (Arabic link) several alleged leading Islamist terrorists in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

Israel maintains that Gaza-based terrorists, who are behind the hundreds of tunnels constructed in recent years, are deliberately hiding their handiwork in residential homes – and now in mosques – using civilians as human shields.

They use the tunnels to smuggle weapons, cash and terrorists into Gaza. Terrorists can also leave the Palestinian enclave via the tunnels for training or in order to continue their paramilitary activities in Sinai.

[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / Wiki Commons]