Gaza's Smuggling Tunnels
People will survive by any means necessary.
"Imposed last year after Gaza fell under the control of the militant Palestinian faction Hamas, the blockade was designed to make Hamas unpopular with Gaza's 1.4 million residents by banning virtually all trade with the outside world.
But deep beneath the watchtowers and fences of Gaza's 10-mile long border with Egypt, a sprawling warren of hand-dug burrows now supplies everything from food, petrol and designer jeans through to guns, drugs and black market Marlboro cigarettes.
Tunnel gangs charge premiums of up to 150 per cent on their cargos, raking in tens of thousands of dollars a week and making the excavation business one of Gaza's few growth industries.
"We bring through laptops, clothes, computers, medicines, mobile phones and even people," said Hisham al Loukh, 23, another tunneller. "There was even a bride from Egypt who came through one recently to get married to a man in Gaza."
The first tunnels underneath Gaza's perimeters were dug years ago, when they were they were primarily to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israel.
But it is during the blockade of the past year that the tunnellers' hazardous craft has really come to the fore. On some estimates there are now up to 500 passageways across to Egypt, mostly clustered around the town of Rafah, which straddles the border.
The tunnels usually surface in the gardens of villas on the Egyptian side of Rafah, where many residents are either sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or willing to lend their properties in return for a share of the lucrative profits.
Each member of a tunnelling gang, usually working in day and night shifts of 10 men each, earns around $15 per metre of passageway dug, which counts as a decent wage in an area which currently has 80 per cent unemployment. But as even the briefest of sojourns down into one of the tunnels makes clear, it is a risky living.
Entering one requires perching precariously on a makeshift wooden chairlift, which is then lowered down the 30 foot deep shaft by a winch powered by a sputtering petrol generator.
As in the Second World War film classic The Great Escape, the tunnel's walls are propped up with makeshift wooden planks, and equipped with ventilation pumps to freshen the musty, damp air at the bottom.
Diggers then use small electric drills to carve a path through the thick clay soil, steering their way by hand-held compass.
But otherwise, the engineering expertise has advanced little since the days of Tom, Dick and Harry. Tunnel collapses have led to dozens of fatalaties - so many that some local shops honour tunnellers in the same fashion as "martyred" local militants, displaying pictures of them clutching spades and drills rather than assault rifles."
"Imposed last year after Gaza fell under the control of the militant Palestinian faction Hamas, the blockade was designed to make Hamas unpopular with Gaza's 1.4 million residents by banning virtually all trade with the outside world.
But deep beneath the watchtowers and fences of Gaza's 10-mile long border with Egypt, a sprawling warren of hand-dug burrows now supplies everything from food, petrol and designer jeans through to guns, drugs and black market Marlboro cigarettes.
Tunnel gangs charge premiums of up to 150 per cent on their cargos, raking in tens of thousands of dollars a week and making the excavation business one of Gaza's few growth industries.
"We bring through laptops, clothes, computers, medicines, mobile phones and even people," said Hisham al Loukh, 23, another tunneller. "There was even a bride from Egypt who came through one recently to get married to a man in Gaza."
The first tunnels underneath Gaza's perimeters were dug years ago, when they were they were primarily to smuggle weapons and explosives for use against Israel.
But it is during the blockade of the past year that the tunnellers' hazardous craft has really come to the fore. On some estimates there are now up to 500 passageways across to Egypt, mostly clustered around the town of Rafah, which straddles the border.
The tunnels usually surface in the gardens of villas on the Egyptian side of Rafah, where many residents are either sympathetic to the Palestinian cause or willing to lend their properties in return for a share of the lucrative profits.
Each member of a tunnelling gang, usually working in day and night shifts of 10 men each, earns around $15 per metre of passageway dug, which counts as a decent wage in an area which currently has 80 per cent unemployment. But as even the briefest of sojourns down into one of the tunnels makes clear, it is a risky living.
Entering one requires perching precariously on a makeshift wooden chairlift, which is then lowered down the 30 foot deep shaft by a winch powered by a sputtering petrol generator.
As in the Second World War film classic The Great Escape, the tunnel's walls are propped up with makeshift wooden planks, and equipped with ventilation pumps to freshen the musty, damp air at the bottom.
Diggers then use small electric drills to carve a path through the thick clay soil, steering their way by hand-held compass.
But otherwise, the engineering expertise has advanced little since the days of Tom, Dick and Harry. Tunnel collapses have led to dozens of fatalaties - so many that some local shops honour tunnellers in the same fashion as "martyred" local militants, displaying pictures of them clutching spades and drills rather than assault rifles."
posted by nolocontendere at 4:15 PM
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