The tunnels under the Egypt border have become an economic lifeline, as Donald Macintyre discovered
The Independent
"Crawling south in the dank metre-high passage, you have to hope the crude wooden supports will keep the thick layers of clay and sand above your head from crashing down on to you. Anyone who has been in a narrow-seam coal mine can relate to the mild sense of claustrophobia induced by a visit to Gaza's smugglers' tunnels, in which workers were killed at roughly the rate of three a week last month.
To get to this one, you have to lower yourself down the shaft like an ungainly monkey, gingerly placing your hands and feet on the frustratingly narrow ledges embedded in its also wooden walls. Given the awkward access and the cramped conditions, it's a surprise to see the lights on when you reach your destination. Welcome to the subterranean world below Gaza's border with Egypt.
The light bulbs are run off long cables from Rafah's municipal power supply and in their glow, "Felix", a cheerful 27-year-old black Palestinian, has been using his intercom phone to talk to his Egyptian counterpart at the other end of the tunnel a kilometre away. Beside him, the whirring electric motor is turning the long steel cables, which are hauling canisters of Egyptian-made cooking gas into Gaza. Two hundred have arrived this morning alone. "I spent two years doing a diploma in decoration," Felix says. "But I have five children to support and this is the only work I can find". .......
...... "Everything people lack in Gaza comes through the tunnels," he explains.
The hundreds of tunnels ferry every possible commodity – from diesel fuel, clothing, chocolate, cigarettes and potato chips to cattle and Chinese-made motorcycles. And reportedly even the occasional hospital patient who has been to Egypt for treatment and is then shipped on a trolley and drugged to prevent panic attacks underground.
It's a thought-provoking irony that the tunnel network, which a United Nations report this month said was a "vital lifeline" and the "direct result" of a siege designed to weaken Hamas, is actually now putting money into the Islamic faction's coffers. ......
...... Eyad explains the difficulties of routing tunnels so that at the other end they will escape the attention of Egyptian forces, who have pledged to destroy them.
"We use Google Earth to plan the tunnel," he says. "We have to find a hidden place, a deserted house or something like that." In constant touch by mobile phone with an Egyptian worker – well paid for risking a prison sentence if he is discovered – and using a long pole, which can protrude above the ground, "we make a sign of where we've got to. Then he tells us, yes that's the right place or move to the left or right, or go another 50 metres."......
Karim, who started to train in Romania as a doctor before the second intifada until he ran out of money, reflects that he would rather be doing something else than a job which has already cost 40 lives this year. Looking down the shaft, he adds: "I may be digging my own grave.""
The Independent
"Crawling south in the dank metre-high passage, you have to hope the crude wooden supports will keep the thick layers of clay and sand above your head from crashing down on to you. Anyone who has been in a narrow-seam coal mine can relate to the mild sense of claustrophobia induced by a visit to Gaza's smugglers' tunnels, in which workers were killed at roughly the rate of three a week last month.
To get to this one, you have to lower yourself down the shaft like an ungainly monkey, gingerly placing your hands and feet on the frustratingly narrow ledges embedded in its also wooden walls. Given the awkward access and the cramped conditions, it's a surprise to see the lights on when you reach your destination. Welcome to the subterranean world below Gaza's border with Egypt.
The light bulbs are run off long cables from Rafah's municipal power supply and in their glow, "Felix", a cheerful 27-year-old black Palestinian, has been using his intercom phone to talk to his Egyptian counterpart at the other end of the tunnel a kilometre away. Beside him, the whirring electric motor is turning the long steel cables, which are hauling canisters of Egyptian-made cooking gas into Gaza. Two hundred have arrived this morning alone. "I spent two years doing a diploma in decoration," Felix says. "But I have five children to support and this is the only work I can find". .......
...... "Everything people lack in Gaza comes through the tunnels," he explains.
The hundreds of tunnels ferry every possible commodity – from diesel fuel, clothing, chocolate, cigarettes and potato chips to cattle and Chinese-made motorcycles. And reportedly even the occasional hospital patient who has been to Egypt for treatment and is then shipped on a trolley and drugged to prevent panic attacks underground.
It's a thought-provoking irony that the tunnel network, which a United Nations report this month said was a "vital lifeline" and the "direct result" of a siege designed to weaken Hamas, is actually now putting money into the Islamic faction's coffers. ......
...... Eyad explains the difficulties of routing tunnels so that at the other end they will escape the attention of Egyptian forces, who have pledged to destroy them.
"We use Google Earth to plan the tunnel," he says. "We have to find a hidden place, a deserted house or something like that." In constant touch by mobile phone with an Egyptian worker – well paid for risking a prison sentence if he is discovered – and using a long pole, which can protrude above the ground, "we make a sign of where we've got to. Then he tells us, yes that's the right place or move to the left or right, or go another 50 metres."......
Karim, who started to train in Romania as a doctor before the second intifada until he ran out of money, reflects that he would rather be doing something else than a job which has already cost 40 lives this year. Looking down the shaft, he adds: "I may be digging my own grave.""
No comments:
Post a Comment