RAMALLAH — Work in 95 percent of underground tunnels along the Salah Eddin route on the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt has stopped due to Egyptian security measures, a report said on Sunday. The official Hamas website quoted eyewitness from Gaza Strip as saying that smuggling of fuel, food and construction material has stopped in recent days. “The noise of power generators, pulling machines, trucks, and workers' shouts are missing these days,” they said. The tunnels serve as the major lifeline for the Gaza Strip's 1.7 million people The report added that the work in the tunnels stopped due to strict security measures that the Egyptian authorities are carrying out along the border with Gaza Strip. The report said Egypt has unprecedentedly deployed large forces in the area. The report estimated that the Egyptian authorities took the measures for fear of unrest on the border due to massive anti-president protests in the country. Last August, Egypt temporarily closed its borders with Gaza after allegations that militants who killed 16 of its soldiers had passed through the tunnels. The tunnels are sponsored by the Hamas-run government that seized control over the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. Palestinian sources said that the some 1,200 tunnels were used to smuggle heavy equipment, people to and from Gaza as well as food and fuel to cope with Israel's siege of the coastal enclave. Abbas said recently that “800 millionaires and 1,600 near-millionaires control the tunnels at the expense of both Egyptian and Palestinian national interests.” The Gaza-based Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said two weeks ago that 232 Palestinians died in underground tunnels since 2006. The rights organization said that 20 Palestinians died during heavy Israeli bombardment on the smuggling tunnels leading to Egypt. The report said nine of the 232 tunnels' victims were children. The center said that 597 Palestinians also have been wounded during work in the tunnels since that year. Israel imposed an economic siege on Gaza Strip in June 2006 when Hamas-led armed groups kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross border raid near the enclave. Israel tightened the siege in June 2007 when Hamas routed Abbas' forces and his Fatah movement from the area. It calls its Gaza blockade a precaution against weapons reaching Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups by sea. Palestinians and their supporters say the blockade is illegal collective punishment. Under heavy international pressure, Israel eased the blockade in 2010 after an Israeli naval raid killed nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Gaza-bound ship.
