Gaza smugglers back in business

Independent:

Some Gazans are working to restart – or are continuing with – the smuggling of contraband under the Gaza-Egypt border, despite the hundreds of Israeli bombing raids which they admit have destroyed most of the tunnels that operated here until Operation Cast Lead began.

They say that highly prized diesel and petrol for fuel-starved Gaza is still flowing through improvised piping under the border as other operators begin to assess the damage and work on reconstructing tunnels filled in by precision F16 bombing.

As well as destroying or damaging hundreds of tunnels, the bombing has dramatised Israel's central war aim of persuading Egypt – with international help – to call a halt to arms smuggling under the Rafah border. While arms are presumed to have been brought through the network, many of the openly dug tunnels have supplied fuel, domestic goods and livestock, in what a UN report last year described as a "vital economic lifeline" to a Gaza under blockade.

The tunnel numbers grew rapidly after Israel imposed its closure of Gaza when Hamas seized control by force in the wake of a short but bloody civil war between it and its Fatah rivals culminated in the June 2007 collapse of their short-lived coalition. Hamas insists the tunnelling would stop if the crossing were reopened for commercial goods.

At one tunnel entrance yesterday a Daf tanker emblazoned with "Fares Petrol" was filling up with 19,000 litres of fuel from one of three storage tanks with a total capacity of 50,000 litres. The corrugated roof of the breeze-block "office" within the enclosed compound – containing a desk and satellite TV – was holed by shrapnel from a bomb which landed at the next door tunnel entrance during the Israeli offensive.

The main operator of the tunnel, "Abu Abdullah", who like several others along the border would not give his full name, said that his own tunnel had been hit by a bomb, which landed some 250 metres away, half way to the border. "Thank God it did not affect the tubes and we can still get the fuel through," he added.

A bearded Hamas activist, Abu Abdullah, 35, said his tunnel was used also to convey "cheese, motors, generators. Whatever you can think of to break the siege, we brought it in". He strongly denied importing weapons through the tunnel and said he intended to complete reconstruction of it within three weeks or a month to bring in other goods. "Even when the rockets were falling, we went on bringing the fuel in," he said.

One Rafah resident who refused to be named said he believed that Hamas had other, secret tunnels, for supplying the Islamic faction's military wing with weapons but did not know their location.

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It is going to take a reoccupation of the Gaza border with Egypt to control the smuggling. It would also be interesting to know whether Israel considers the activity described by the Independent as a violation of the cease fire. Since there was no mutual agreement on terms it probably is not, but Israel could assert a right to block these guys.

Update: The BBC reports that "Israel has warned of renewed military strikes on Gaza if tunnels used for smuggling in goods from Egypt are reopened by Palestinians."