A host of Israeli regional councils located along the Seam Line, near Israel's border with the West Bank, announced the creation of an emergency forum on Monday to protect themselves from threats beyond the border after residents complained of tunnels being built under their homes for terror purposes.
Local residents claimed that they heard digging beneath their homes alongside explosion sounds coming to them from the Palestinian city of Tulkarm.
Last week, a resident of Bet Hefer told 103FM in a radio interview that locals live in "a constant state of insecurity.
"The settlement is targeted with direct and indirect fire almost every day. We can show you pictures of shells from our yards."
Five inspections show no signs of terror tunnels, council says
The Emek Hefer Regional Council said in a statement released this week that it takes the residents' reports seriously and has carried out five inspections in cooperation with Israeli security forces thus far, in which no evidence of tunnel digging has been found.
The results of the inspections will be examined in further detail by experts and presented to the public in due course, the regional council stated.
As part of the newly created emergency forum, the regional councils are cooperating with the IDF on a host of preemptive measures to be carried out immediately to reinforce the Seam Line towns' security.
These security measures include operations carried out by Israeli forces in the area, construction of a second line of defense from the West Bank in the form of a reinforcement of the security fence, and other technological improvements.
'It sounds exactly like Hamas tunnel digging'
Matan Buchner, a resident of Bat Hefer, told Kan Reshet B on Monday that local residents suffer from "constant digging noises for a number of years, we have been complaining of residents hearing knocking under their homes.
"It sounds exactly like Hamas tunnel digging, as they did in the North and South," Buchner added.