Photo Propa Images/PalestineFreeVoice

Social Reportage Series No 5 Gaza Strip

Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan

The smuggling of gods through tunnels beneath the surface of Rafah in Gaza Strip continues,in the eighth day of the tattered ceasefire between the Palestinian armed resistance and the Israeli occupant.The Israelis have closed the crossings for legal imported goods,amidst exchange of accusations of who first violated the truce agreement.The Israelis have breached the cease fire throughout the Gaza Strip seven times, some of the shootings have seriously injured Palestinian farmers.In retaliation operations the Palestinian resistance fired a barrel of rockets across the border into Israel.

Since September 2000,the smuggling tunnels has functioned as an import of a significant amount
of basic supplies,including medicine,food, clothes, auto -spare- parts,medical equipment, electronic items, foreign currency, cigarettes and weapons.

The Palestinians still have to rely on smuggled victualled from Egypt,food, medicine and other basic supplies through the underground tunnels, the life-nerves, which are stretching from Gaza Strip to the inside of the Egyptian border.The smuggling tunnel featured in our reportage, was built 8 years ago,in the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada,the cost of building this tunnel is estimated to over $50.000. While working in this environment,in the cold, sometimes trapped, suffocating under water or collapsing walls of dirt and concrete,82 people have died.It took three months to finish a hard and dangerous, 24 hours make shift work.

The excavation of smuggling tunnels in the Rafah area began in 1982, subsequent to the division of the Rafah city between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.The average smuggling tunnel is approximately 500 meters in length, and 20 to 25 meters deep.The tunnels may be equipped with wood-paneling, electrical infrastructure, communications gear, and rudimentary elevators in vertical shaft, to transport people or the freight of goods.The openings of the tunnels are often located within private Egyptian homes or other buildings, near or next to the border with Egypt.

The Oslo Accords of 1994-95, granted the Palestinian Authority control over the majority of the Gaza Strip. However, the Accords stipulated that the Israelis would retain control of a narrow strip of land (known as the "Philadelphi Route") between the area under Palestinian control, and the border with Egypt.The route is 11 km (6.5 miles) long and approximately 100 metres (330 feet) wide. In the Israelis "peace agreement" with Egypt, the Egyptians signed a granted security control over Egyptian territorial land, running 70 meters east of the Philadelphi Road.

In August 2004, the Egyptians had knowledge what type of weapons being smuggled and could have prevented the smuggling of RPG's into the Gaza Strip. It is also believed that Egypt wanted Katyusha rockets to be smuggled in via the tunnels. The Israelis accused Egypt to use the weapons smuggling as a measure against the Israelis, In September 2004, the Israelis concluded that the Egyptians is supporting the Palestinian Resistance against the Israelis which has enabled Hamas and other Palestinian political organizations to use Sinai as a logistic rear miles away from the fighting front.It is believed that the Israelis have used the Rafah tunnels as a pretext to create a depopulated 'buffer zone' along the Gaza-Egyptian border,which resulted in the destruction of 1,600 homes by September 2004.

In August 2005, the Israelis said that the Egyptians deployment of its forces along the border with Gaza Strip to halt smuggling, was a strategic Trojan Horse.The Israelis said that Egypt paved the way for a complete dismissal of the 1978 peace treaty with Cairo.The Cairo treaty stipulates that only one division of Egyptian armed forces, is allowed to be stationed in the Sinai peninsula, and only up to 50 km east of the Suez Canal.

Civil Egyptian police equipped with light weapons, were permitted along the Egyptian side to a depth of 40 km of the border with the Israe

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