Rafah
Smuggling
Tunnels:
Life-Nerve For Gaza (I)
By Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan – Gaza
The smuggling of goods through tunnels beneath the surface of
Rafah in Gaza Strip continues, in the eighth day of the
tattered ceasefire between the Palestinian armed resistance
and the Israeli occupant.
The Israelis have closed the crossings for legal imported
goods,amidst exchange of accusations of who first violated the
truce agreement. Mahmoud Zahar prominent leader of Hamas said
in a public statement on Saturday that "Hamas will arrest
anyone who make an attempt to break the cease-fire with the
Israelis, and will confiscate their weapons. The Israelis have
breached the cease fire throughout the Gaza Strip seven times,
some of the shootings have seriously injured Palestinian
farmers. In retaliation operations the Palestinian resistance
fired a barrel of rockets across the border into Israel.
Since September 2000, the smuggling tunnels has functioned as
an import of a significant amount of basic supplies, including
medicine, food, clothes, auto -spare-parts, medical equipment,
electronic items, foreign currency, cigarettes and weapons.
The Palestinians still have to rely on smuggled victualled
from Egypt, food, medicine and other basic supplies through
the underground tunnels, the life-nerves, which are stretching
from Gaza Strip to the inside of the Egyptian border. The
smuggling tunnel featured in our reportage, was built 8 years
ago, in the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada, the
cost of building this tunnel is estimated to over $50.000.
While working in this environment, in the cold, sometimes
trapped, suffocating under water or collapsing walls of dirt
and concrete, 82 people have died. It took three months to
finish a hard and dangerous, 24 hours make shift work.
The excavation of smuggling tunnels in the Rafah area began in
1982, subsequent to the division of the Rafah city between
Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The average smuggling tunnel is
approximately 500 meters in length, and 20 to 25 meters deep.
The tunnels may be equipped with wood-paneling, electrical
infrastructure, communications gear, and rudimentary elevators
in vertical shaft, to transport people or the freight of
goods. The openings of the tunnels are often located within
private Egyptian homes or other buildings, near or next to the
border with Egypt.
The Oslo Accords of 1994-95, granted the Palestinian Authority
control over the majority of the Gaza Strip. However, the
Accords stipulated that the Israelis would retain control of a
narrow strip of land (known as the "Philadelphi Route")
between the area under Palestinian control, and the border
with Egypt. The route is 11 km (6.5 miles) long and
approximately 100 metres (330 feet) wide. In the Israelis
"peace agreement" with Egypt, the Egyptians signed a granted
security control over Egyptian territorial land, running 70
meters east of the Philadelphi Road.
In August 2004, the Egyptians had knowledge what type of
weapons being smuggled and could have prevented the smuggling
of RPG’s into the Gaza Strip. It is also believed that Egypt
wanted..Katyusha rockets to be smuggled in via the tunnels.
The Israelis accused Egypt to use the weapons smuggling as a
measure against the Israelis. In September 2004, the Israelis
concluded that the Egyptians is supporting the Palestinian
resistance against the Israelis which has enabled Hamas and
other Palestinian political organizations to use Sinai as a
logistic rear miles away from the fighting front. However it
is also believed that the Israelis have used the Rafah tunnels
as a pretext to create a depopulated ‘buffer zone’ along the
Gaza-Egyptian border,which resulted in the destruction of
1,600 homes by September 2004.
In August 2005, the Israelis said that the Egyptians
deployment of its forces along the border with Gaza Strip to
halt smuggling, was a strategic Trojan Horse. The Israelis
said that Egypt paved the way for a complete dismissal of the
1978 peace treaty with Cairo. The Cairo treaty stipulates that
only one division of Egyptian armed forces, is allowed to be
stationed in the Sinai peninsula, and only up to 50 km east of
the Suez Canal.
Civil Egyptian
permitted along
border with the
matter the small
police equipped with
the Egyptian side to a
Israelis. The Israelis
force, but they made a
light weapons, were
depth of 40 km of the
said that it does not
strategic mistake. The
Israelis did not have any strategic depth,150 kilometers from
the border or 15 km would be significant in an opening shot of
a war.
In October 2006, Egypt threatened to increase its military
presence by 5,000 troops along the Gaza Strip border. The
additional Egyptian security members of the police central
security force, were slated to join approximately 750 border
guards. An Egyptian official, claimed that the deployment
would occur in anticipation of a possible Israeli counterterrorist operation that could include, bombing of the weapons
smuggling tunnels.
In February 2007,Yuval Diskin the Shin Bet Chief, determined
that Egyptian security forces were failing to stop the
smuggling of weapons from the Sinai Desert to the Gaza Strip.
Discin said that" If Egypt starts to thwart the transfer of
weapons, then that will slow down the resistance buildup in
Gaza Strip and delay a military operation there. The Egyptians
have a key in their hands and they know it."!
The Israelis constructed a wall of 7-9 meter along the
Philadelphi Route. In addition,the IOF detonated explosives
along the route to cause collapse of tunnels in the area.
Canals were also dugged in an attempt to flood the tunnels,
with sea water. In addition, the IOF integrated "several
sophisticated systems", inserted explosive material into the
ground, including sensor systems that defined the depth of the
tunnels. In January 23, 2008, the Palestinian resistance
destroyed several parts of the Israeli built wall, dividing
Gaza Strip and Egypt in the town of Rafah. Thousands of
starving Gazans moved across the Philadelphi Route into Egypt,
in search of food and basic supplies.
Hamas has excavated tunnels for operations against Israeli
posts and population centers close to the Gaza Strip border
fence. The tunnels allow the Palestinian resistance to
infiltrate into Israeli territory and then return to the Gaza
Strip. In June 25, 2006, members of the Palestinian resistance
utilized an "infiltration" tunnel to carry out an operation
against a Israeli post near the Sufa Crossing. Two Israelis
were killed in this operation and Gilad Shalit was captured.
There are also designed military tunnels as safe passages for
operatives in the Palestinian resistance in battle zones. Such
tunnels are typically located between buildings. Hamas has
also populated "ambush" tunnels with camouflaged IEDs and
utilized underground (concrete) firing positions and offensive
capabilities, hidden rocket launch sites which is activated
via a delay system concealed in vegetation or between
buildings.
Back in November 2000, the Israeli Radio reported that weapons
and ammunition were smuggled into Gaza Strip and the President
Yasser Arafat’s airport, via Arafat’s private air plane. The
weapons and ammunition were distributed to Fatah Tanzim in
Gaza Strip. Worth notice, even when the Israelis bombed the
Gaza airport, and it was closed for traffic, the Israelis
continued to permit the air plane to land and take off, and no
inspection was done by the Israelis.
– Hiyam Noir and Fady Adwan contributed this article to
PalestineChronicle.com.