Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The Egyptian army destroyed hundreds of smuggling tunnels along the Salah Eddin route on the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt since the beginning of this year, a report said on Saturday. The independent Palestinian news agency Ma'an quoted Egyptian security sources as saying that the army destroyed 1055 tunnels since January 2011, and 794 of them since January 2013. The report said that the Egyptian used modern detectors to find the tunnels underneath the borderline of Egypt and Gaza Strip. The report cited the sources as saying that the tunnels were used to smuggle food, building materials, fuel, drugs, gold and several other materials. The Hamas government, that seized control over the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Abbas in 2007, sponsors hundreds of tunnels which are 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. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said recently that “800 millionaires and 1,600 near-millionaires control the tunnels at the expense of both Egyptian and Palestinian national interests.”
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' security forces and ousted 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. Israel and the West consider Hamas a terrorist movement. The Quartet, which comprises the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, has asked Hamas to recognize Israel, accept peace deals and abandon violence in exchange for an international recognition of the movement.
