Hamas fired mortars at Israeli troops seeking to uncover terror tunnels built by the Iran-backed terrorist group for the fourth consecutive day on Friday. Israel launched air raids against Hamas positions inside the Gaza Strip in response to the attacks.

IDF troops have been operating near the border with Gaza and inside the enclave to find terror tunnels that extend into Israel. No Israeli troops have been injured in the mortar attacks, although a number of engineering vehicles have been damaged.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh declared on Friday that the terror group would not accept Israeli incursions into Gaza “on the pretext of searching for tunnels.”

Israeli authorities arrested and subsequently interrogated Hamas’ top tunnel expert last month, and have been working to discover and destroy the organization’s subterranean network. The IDF located one tunnel last month and a second earlier this week.

“The repeated attacks against the IDF activities to locate and destroy cross-border tunnels will not be tolerated,” said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, the military’s spokesman, in a statement. “Hamas’s diabolical plan to infiltrate into Israeli communities must be stopped. The IDF has the obligation and a duty to safeguard the people in southern Israel and the sovereignty of our borders, we will continue to do so.”

Yossi Kuperwasser, formerly the head of the research division of Israeli military intelligence and later the director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, told reporters on Thursday that Hamas’ “ongoing effort to be better prepared to launch a new attack and to fight again against Israel in the time that is considered to be right from their point of view….they definitely invest a lot in making the necessary preparations so that in the next round, when they decide to start it, they will be able to inflict the heaviest damage on Israel, including through those tunnels.”

[Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90 ]