Hamas supporters take part in a protest against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to postpone planned parliamentary elections, in the northern Gaza Strip April 30, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

i24 News – The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Friday announced it recovered the bodies of three men from a smuggling tunnel along the Egyptian border with Gaza.

“Civil defense teams found three bodies under the ground near the border, south of Rafah” city after part of the tunnel collapsed on Thursday, interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozom said in a statement.

Hamas said that workers had died when toxic gas was pumped into a “trading tunnel,” calling it “murder for which Egyptian authorities bear full responsibility.”

The accusation could aggravate the terrorist group’s already fraught relations with Egypt just as the Egyptians are trying to broker a permanent cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel.

There was no immediate Egyptian comment.

Israel says that the tunnel network was dug under the border with Egypt to allow the Iran-backed Hamas and its Islamic Jihad allies to smuggle in arms.