• Published 14:57 12.10.09
  • Latest update 14:58 12.10.09

Egypt destroys four smuggling tunnels on Gaza border

Palestinians have dug thousands of tunnels to smuggle goods and fuel from Egypt to the Gaza Strip.

By DPA Tags: smuggling tunnel Hamas Israel news Gaza

Egyptian police destroyed four smuggling tunnels in the border town of Rafah, an Egyptian security official said Monday.

The tunnels were discovered in Salaheddin and Qomboz neighborhoods in Rafah, which is bisected by Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

Inside the tunnels, police discovered a large number of material used for construction including paint and cement piled inside plastic bags and ready to be smuggled to Gaza, the source told the German Press Agency DPA.

Palestinians have dug thousands of tunnels to smuggle goods and fuel from Egypt to the Gaza Strip after Israel imposed a tight blockade on Gaza more than two years ago.

Egypt has been under consistent international pressure, particularly from the United States and Israel, to curtail weapons smuggling across its border with the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian authorities have destroyed dozens of tunnels. Israel has also bombarded hundreds of them.

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  • 4. 0 0
    Yes destroy the tunnels by ending the illegal blockade
    • SRSabbah
    • 14.10.09
    • 05:25

    End this illegal blockade on Gaza and there will be no need for tunnels. Both Israel and Egypt are equally guilty in creating the world's largets open-air prison with rampant unemployment, poverty, malnutrition,....... Shame on you, all Arab collaborators! Selling your kin for money and power!!

  • 3. 0 0
    Make Tunnels Impossible
    • Chaim Ben Kahan
    • 12.10.09
    • 19:42

    Surely there is an engineering solution possible to prevent tunnels from being build along the Gaza Egypt border? How come Gazans are unable to tunnel into Israel successfully but do so routinely into Egypt? Obviously other nations have found a solution? A seismic device, a very deep ravine full of water, a impassible barrier are all possibilities.

  • 2. 0 0
    The two responses
    • Mark Lincoln
    • 12.10.09
    • 17:29

    Some will see this as part of the long term attempts by Egypt to honor it's peace treaty with Israel. The rest will see it as a deception, that Egypt is part of the vast conspiracy to sap Israel's Purity of Body Essences. See: modneliben

  • 1. 0 0
    pathetically late
    • Paddyson
    • 12.10.09
    • 16:27

    4 tunnels out of hundreds for years. located within a narrow strip of land, any competent police, army, or intelligence unit could have located them and shut them all down in days or a week. but Egypt had an incentive for leaving them: bribes, trace, kick backs, and saving Gaza while pretending to protest. Egypt wants it both ways. nothing new. Now it is boasting it is enforcing the control of the strip after Hamas smashed the walls and riddled the undermined it for years. Hah hah. good one.