An Israel Railways train bound for Ashkelon. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – A new train line from Ashkelon to Sderot may be vulnerable to missile fire from Gaza, a new Hamas video suggests.

The train line was built to link the southern city of Sderot to the center of Israel, and all of its stations are fully protected against missile attacks. But video footage reveals that Palestinians are monitoring the train line from a vantage point only several hundred meters from the border.

An unnamed official involved in the incident told Israel Hayom that the footage was recovered by Israel after a recent arrest of a senior Hamas operative in Gaza.

Following a deadly attack in 2011, in which terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at a school bus near the Gaza border and killed one child, the Israel Defense Forces has made sure to remove trees and shrubbery from the area to prevent Hamas from setting up observation posts and firing missiles at vehicles. But the train line, according to the video, is vulnerable to precisely such attacks.

Israel Railways and the IDF Southern Command are currently working to devise a solution to protect the exposed stretch of track.