Israeli army charges soldier for killing wounded Palestinian
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Israeli Army Radio says a military court has indicted a soldier for manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a wounded Palestinian attacker in the West Bank.
The radio said Monday that the soldier, whose name was not released under a gag order, has also been charged with inappropriate military conduct. The shooting took place last month in Hebron, a West Bank city that has been a focal point of a seven-month wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Initially, the military had said two Palestinians stabbed and wounded a soldier before troops killed the pair. A video later showed one of the attackers still alive before a soldier shot him in the head.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
The Israeli military said Monday it has discovered and destroyed a tunnel burrowing from Gaza into Israel — the first tunnel to be discovered since Israel's 2014 war with the militant Hamas movement that runs the coastal strip.
Israeli troops detected the tunnel's exit, still underground, several days ago, according to military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who added he believes the tunnel was built after the summer war.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It extended several hundred meters (yards) from Gaza into Israel and was lined with cement and outfitted with electricity, ventilation and rail tracks to cart away dirt from digging, Lerner said.
It was not clear when exactly the tunnel was destroyed.
In 2014, Israel destroyed more than 30 tunnels Hamas had dug under the border. More than 2,200 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them civilians, were killed in the 50-day summer war. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and seven civilians were killed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Hamas vowed to rebuild the tunnel network. This year, 14 people died in Gaza while digging tunnels aimed at attacking Israelis or for hiding weapons and rocket launch sites. Israelis living near the Gaza Strip have reported hearing digging sounds under their homes in recent months.
Spokesman Eyal Brandeis of Kibbutz Sufa — just across the border from the southern Gaza Strip — told Israel Radio the tunnel's exit would have been near his community. In 2014, Palestinian gunmen attempted to attack Israel through another tunnel near the kibbutz.
"All the worries and fears residents here had ... are coming back," Brandeis said.
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This story has been corrected to show that the length of the discovered tunnel was several hundred meters, not 100 meters (yards).