Israel-Gaza conflict: Israeli military releases video footage from inside ‘Hamas tunnel’ – before spectacularly blowing it up

The clip purports to show the army’s Golani Brigade and Combat Engineering Corps in their crackdown on cross-border tunnels

A video released by the Israeli military purporting to show the destruction of a Hamas tunnel (YouTube)

The Israeli military has released video footage which it claims shows the destruction of a tunnel leading across the border from Gaza.

The clip, posted to the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF’s) official YouTube channel, purported to show an underground passage that “would have enabled terrorists to infiltrate Israel and carry out attacks”.

The military said the tunnel was discovered and destroyed by the Golani Brigade and Combat Engineering Corps, which continued their efforts to remove Hamas’s tunnel system throughout a weekend marked by a number of proposed humanitarian truces.

In the video, a camera with a torch is passed through what the army claims is the tunnel from Gaza to Israel.

Soldiers are later shown preparing for the apparent detonation, before a huge explosion is shown from both the ground and the air.

It came as the conflict-ridden Gaza Strip experienced a relative lull overnight, with a single rocket fired by Hamas this morning met by isolated Israeli shelling.

Otherwise, it was one of the quietest nights in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began three weeks ago, as Muslims started celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Described as a "relative lull" since 9.30pm on Sunday night, it came after a weekend in which both sides rejected each-other's suggestions of truces and more deaths were added to the 1,030 Palestinians and 45 Israelis killed so far.

That figure on the Palestinian side was reduced by 30 overnight by the Gaza Health Ministry, which said a number of people had been reunited with family-members feared missing.