Gaza flourishes on top of ‘Swiss cheese’ maze ( even the “miners” wear masks )
Choked off from the outside world under a tight Israeli blockade; Gaza smugglers boast about the hundreds of tunnels breaking the siege and connecting the impoverished strip to neighboring Egypt.
Gazans in desperate need of goods, such as …………food and medicine,……. say their city is rife with tunnels and smuggling has now become a lucrative business in the densely populated area.”The ground at Rafah is a real Swiss cheese. If there were an earthquake the whole lot would cave in,” the boss of one of the tunnels told AFP.
…………
“It is a growth industry
because of the blockade of Gaza and the closure of frontiers,” said Abu Khaled, in charge of one of the sites, where tunnelling began 10 days ago.
BUT ‘No weapons or hashish’
“From time to time, Hamas passes by to tell us it is forbidden to traffic in weapons or hashish,” he said as he helped an earth-spattered young worker to fill in a 20-metre (67-feet) deep pit.
Abu Khaled says Hamas also takes “its percentage” on the products that enter the Gaza strip, where crossings with Israel remain closed since the Islamists took power in June last year.
As the blockade has continued, the number of tunnels has multiplied, with the blessing of Hamas, which sees them as a way of breaking the Israeli siege.