At least one person was killed Tuesday evening when a tunnel collapsed in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian media reports. Some sources put the death toll as high as four.

Hamas would not confirm or deny the reports. But the Hamas-run Al-Quds television network identified the fatality as 23-year-old Haider a-Zaher, a Hamas operative.

Separately, IDF bulldozers were reportedly digging near the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, near the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis, across the border from the Israeli villages of Nir Oz and Nirim.

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Last week, seven people were confirmed killed and four were missing after a tunnel collapsed in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood in northeastern Gaza City.

That collapse occurred amid heavy winter rain. Hamas accused Israel of causing the collapse by opening dams to flood Gaza with water — an annual claim made by Palestinians and flatly rejected by Israel. There are no dams in southern Israel.

In a bid to keep a lid on last week’s disaster, Hamas forbade local media from reporting the incident.

The nature of the tunnel that collapsed today was not immediately clear. Hamas has in the past dug cross-border tunnels into Israel in order to stage attacks on civilians and soldiers. Other tunnels are used by the terror group as part of its defensive infrastructure.

It has recently been reported that Hamas accelerated its tunnel-digging program.

Several days ago, the head of the Eshkol Regional Council, Gadi Yarkoni, told Israel Radio that many residents have been complaining of hearing — and feeling — increased underground digging activity in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have warned Hamas not to prepare new tunnel attacks, amid a welter of reports that the terror group has been speedily rebuilding its network of cross-border tunnels. It’s former prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh bragged on Friday that Hamas was advancing its terror tunnels and its rocket production ahead of a further conflict with Israel.

Hamas has built dozens of tunnels into Israel, many of which were used to carry out attacks during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The IDF said it destroyed over 30 tunnels during that conflict.

The Strip has been subject to a blockade by Israel and Egypt, designed in part to prevent the terror group from importing arms and building new tunnels with imported concrete.

Egypt has embarked on a massive campaign aimed at stemming cross-border smuggling between Gaza and Sinai, where it is fighting an insurgency by Islamist militants. The operation has included flooding hundreds of tunnels that once dotted the border region and building a 500-meter-wide buffer zone filled with seawater.

Avi Issacharoff contributed to this report.