Israel’s military said it has destroyed a cross-border attack tunnel that ran from Gaza into Israel and Egypt dug by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave.

Residents in Gaza said Israeli jets bombed an area east of the southern town of Rafah, by the Egyptian and Israeli borders. Israel confirmed the attack immediately afterwards, but gave no details.

“We understand this was a terror tunnel because it runs underneath strategic facilities,” Israeli military spokesman Colonel Jonathan Conricus said, referring to gas and fuel pipelines, as well as an army position.

“It could also have served to transfer terrorists from the Gaza strip into Egypt, in order to attack Israeli targets from Egypt.”

Hamas did not comment.

Colonel Conricus said the destroyed tunnel was dug by key operatives of Hamas and was one mile long, penetrating 80 metres under the Kerem Shalom border crossing into Israel and into Egypt.

“It is definitely a possibility that an attack was imminent,” Colonel Conricus said, but would not elaborate further.

Kerem Shalom, the main passage point for goods entering Gaza, was shut down on Saturday before the Israeli attack.

Tensions have risen in the region since US President Donald Trump reversed decades of US policy on 6 December by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Palestinians in Gaza have launched 18 cross-border rockets or mortars, and 15 protesters and two gunmen have been killed by Israeli fire.

Escalation could easily occur, even though both sides have signalled they do not want that to happen.

During the last Gaza war, in 2014, Hamas fighters used dozens of tunnels to blindside Israel’s superior forces and threaten civilian communities near the frontier.

The Israeli military said it has destroyed three such tunnels in the past two months, but that it was not seeking escalation.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the tunnel was a “major terrorism infrastructure belonging to Hamas in the Gaza Strip”.

“Hamas must understand that we will not allow these attacks to continue and that we will respond with even greater force,” he told reporters before boarding a flight to India.

Israel has been constructing a sensor-equipped underground wall along the 36-mile Gaza border, aiming to complete the $1.1bn (£800m) project by mid-2019.