Updated: The IDF announced that seven more soldiers were killed in fighting Monday, bringing the death toll to 25 since the fighting began.
Israeli forces killed 10 terrorists Monday morning as they emerged from a tunnel inside Israel. In addition, there were dozens of terrorists in the tunnel wearing Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) uniforms, officials say.
The latest attempted infiltration shows the depth of the Hamas tunnel network. As Operation Protective Edge ends its second week, troops continue to discover and destroy tunnels each day. Yet, enough remain intact to allow Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israeli cities and to try sneaking into Israeli towns near the Gaza border.
A similar attempted infiltration Thursday was thwarted when 13 heavily-armed terrorists were killed near a kibbutz in southern Israel.
The IDF released footage of Monday's attempted infiltration:
Israeli troops announce uncovering and destroyed new tunnels each day. But they are discovering that the tunnels have "multiple exit and entry points ... making them difficult to track and demolish," the New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, uncertainty continues about a Hamas claim Sunday that it kidnapped an Israeli soldier. The announcement triggered jubilant street celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza. Fatah, the party which runs the Palestinian Authority and which allegedly stands against the Hamas-instigated violence, featured images of the celebration on its official Facebook page. One picture showed Fatah members handing out sweets "out of joy over the abduction of a soldier by the Palestinian resistance on the blessed soil of Gaza."
But the name Hamas gave for the soldier was similar to one of 13 elite troops killed in fighting Sunday morning in Shejaiya. Two of those Golani Brigade soldiers killed were Americans who moved to Israel.
"There is no kidnapped Israeli soldier and those rumors are untrue," Israel's United Nations Ambassador Ron Prosor said on Sunday. But in an interview with CNN Monday morning, government spokesman Mark Regev was less absolute.
"It could just be Hamas bravado. We're looking into it," Regev said.
Meanwhile, on the heels of being caught on a live microphone mocking Israel's "pinpoint operation," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to be in the region today to push a return to a ceasefire which ended a similar conflict in 2012.
Kerry wasn't invited and his presence won't be helpful, said former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren.
Kerry brings with him a "long history" of failed diplomacy, Oren told Israel's Channel 2 on Monday.
Meanwhile, Israeli jets reportedly bombed a site in Sudan Monday that was holding an arsenal intended for Hamas, including long-range missiles.
And last week we reported on the United Nations Relief and Human Works Agency discovery of 20 Hamas missiles hidden inside a UN school in Gaza. The agency issued a statement of outrage. Then, incredibly, it gave the rockets back to Hamas.
A senior Israeli official said the move showed that the UN agency has developed "battered-wife syndrome" and "attempts to ingratiate itself with Hamas."