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What You Need To Know About The Tunnels That Bring Life — And Death — Into Gaza
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/07/18/3461742/inside-the-tunnels-that-bring-life-and-death-into-gaza/What You Need To Know About The Tunnels That Bring Life — And Death — Into Gaza
By Hayes Brown July 18, 2014 at 2:47 pm Updated: July 18, 2014 at 3:29 pm
A Palestinian worker rests inside a smuggling tunnel in Rafah, on the border between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip in 2013
CREDIT: AP Photo/Hatem Moussa, File
snip//
Literally everything you can imagine passes through these tunnels at this point.
However, it’s not just guns and other illicit materials that run through the tunnel system. Tunnel owners get a cut of what passes through, leaving open the possibility for almost anything to move under the ground. “One operator told of the time he tried to smuggle in a lion for a Gaza zoo,” National Geographic wrote in a story on the tunnels in 2012, telling of one of the more improbable crossings. “The animal was improperly sedated, awoke in the tunnel mid-trip, and tore one of the workers apart.”
All told, what passes through the tunnels makes up a substantial portion, if not the vast majority, of the Gazan economy at this point. In October 2011, United Nations figures estimated that “800,000 liters (around 5,000 barrels) of fuel, 3,000 tons of gravel, 500 tons of steel rods and 3,000 tons of cement” passed through the tunnels daily.
What has Israel even more concerned than the Gaza-Egypt tunnels, however, is the fact that the system extends much further than the eastern border. These tunnels underneath the 141 square mile territory can be used for militants to travel without being surveyed, Israel argues, making them a threat. A small number also stretch all the way into Israeli territory. “At dawn on Thursday, 13 Hamas gunmen from Gaza emerged from the mouth of an underground tunnel about a mile away, inside Israel territory,” the New York Times reported on Friday. “The air force thwarted the attack, but the government said that the attempted incursion was the final straw and that the ground invasion would commence.”
Though the tunnels date back to the 1980s, they’ve became extremely important after Israel began blockading Gaza.
The reason that such a large portion of the Gazan economy is dependent on the tunnels is that most other crossings into the territory are blocked off. Since Hamas took control of the Strip in 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, allowing “the entry only of goods ‘vital for the survival of the civilian population,’ banning exports, and prohibiting Palestinians themselves from leaving the Gaza Strip in all but the most exceptional cases.” In theory, the limitations are to prevent Hamas from importing weapons into Gaza, as well as cutting off building supplies needed to construct more tunnels. In practice, this has only increased the important role the tunnels play in Gaza.
more, and I hope you read it...
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/07/18/3461742/inside-the-tunnels-that-bring-life-and-death-into-gaza/
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