Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH – The Egyptian army destroyed several smuggling tunnels along the Salah Eddin route on the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt recently, a report said on Monday. The Palestinian news agency Ma'an quoted Egyptian security sources as saying that the army destroyed ten tunnels along the border with Rafah last week. The sources added that the army has destroyed 1,113 tunnels since the start of the Egyptian government's campaign against militant groups, launched early August 2013 in northern Sinai Peninsula. According to the sources, the Egyptian army has created a 13-kilometer wide, kilometer deep buffer zone along the border in an effort to prevent smuggling and infiltration. Egyptian security authorities said that they closed the tunnels because of militant attacks on Egyptian security forces in the lawless Sinai Peninsula. The Palestinian movement denies the allegations. 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 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. Hamas says that the work in 95 percent of underground tunnels along the Salah Eddin route stopped due to Egyptian security measures. The movements said that the smuggling of fuel, food and construction material stopped in recent months due to the strict security measures that the Egyptian security authorities are carrying out along the border with Gaza Strip. The tunnels serve as the major lifeline for the Gaza Strip's 1.7 million people 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 security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas 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.
