Smuggler "Abu Mohamed," who declined to give his full name, is the owner of several tunnels under the borders between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt. He said the tunnel business have enriched him and his extended family.
Living in a large villa in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, his family own orchards with fields of citrus, olives and guava, all thanks to the earnings from the tunnel smuggling.
Tunnels have been a treasure for hundreds of smugglers who made millions of dollars and lived in luxury out of this business.
The Israeli Ha'aretz Daily reported on Sunday that Islamic Hamas movement, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since last summer, is making 20 million U.S. dollars a month from tunnel smuggling.
The Israeli daily quoted Arab sources as saying that there are 200 tunnels under the borders between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, adding that Hamas imposes taxes on the goods that are smuggled from Egypt into Gaza.
Tunnels bring life to the besieged Gaza Strip and a major frustration to Israel. However, Egypt has become persistent to shut down all tunnels snaking under the Palestinian-Egyptian borders.
"Half of the people in Rafah city rely on smuggling to make their living," Abu Mohamed said. "If you suddenly took that away from them, you'd have thousands of families starved. I pray day and night that Egypt would stop shutting down the tunnels."
According to Israel, Egypt has ratcheted up its anti-tunnel efforts lately, and is making impressive strides in locating tunnels and shutting them down.
"I'm afraid it might be over soon," he said. "The Egyptians are determined to shut all the tunnels down under American and Israeli pressure."
Tunnels have been a grave concern for Israel as armed Palestinian groups use them to smuggle high-tech weapons and explosives as well as money, donated by Iran and Syria that used to reinforce the existence of the faction determined to fight Israel.
According to Israeli military reports, a significant amount of automatic rifles, rockets and launchers, ammunition and explosives, used by Palestinian groups, has been smuggled through the complex network of tunnels.
Israel, which sealed off Gaza after the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June 2007, has accused Egypt of not doing enough to shut down the extensive tunnel network.
The U.S. has also put much pressure on Egypt, threatening to freeze 200 million dollars in military financial aid to Egypt until it acted to stop the smuggling.
Accordingly, Egypt ultimately changed its attitude toward tunnels and arms-smuggling and started its crackdown on tunnels and smugglers two weeks ago. Egypt destroyed or blocked 40 tunnels where they seized large amounts of fuel, food and cigarettes.
In light of the tight siege imposed on the impoverished coastal enclave, blocking the tunnels means the death of life in the Hamas-run territory.
Unlike Abu Mohammed who believes the business is fading away, another smuggler Adel, in his mid 30s from Rafah City, plays down the Egyptian efforts to destroy the tunnels because smugglers "can easily dig new ones."
"You can't kill a snake," said Adel, who owns a network of tunnels in Rafah City and is preparing to dig one more network of tunnels in a nearby area."
He added that the Egyptian efforts to destroy tunnels "might delay shipments but won't halt them. Smugglers can quickly dig new tunnel entrances by branching out from the main passage."
Adel said Egyptian security forces have located and destroyed tens of active tunnels in the past few weeks, but "this cannot stop our work forever because we have means to recover from every problem we face in our work."
He added "the Egyptians destroy a new tunnel almost every day for the past few weeks, but despite the crackdown, smuggling has hardly diminished in volume."
Egypt's crackdown led the ousted Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza to accuse Egypt of endangering Palestinians who depend on tunnels for basic goods.
"Egypt is attacking the tunnels on its border with the Gaza Strip because of the great American and Israeli pressure it faces," said Ihab al-Ghussein, spokesman of interior ministry of Hamas.
According to media sources, the U.S. Army has begun training Egyptian soldiers to locate and destroy tunnels in an effort to improve the Egyptian army's ability to cope with arms-smuggling from Sinai into the Gaza Strip.
Ghussein accused Egypt of using "dangerous methods" to destroy the tunnels, including gas and water, leading to an increase in the death toll.
Although the Egyptian efforts to shut down smuggling tunnels were highly applauded by Israeli officials, Israel still believes that Egypt can do much more.
Source:Xinhua
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