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Israel/Palestine

A Lifeline of Tunnels

Prior to the most recent war a few dozen tunnels were dug from buildings on the Gazan side of the border over to the Egyptian side, where the apartment buildings come right up to the border. The tunnels emerged inside privately-owned buildings on the Egyptian side, and traders used them to ferry goods – and weapons – into Gaza.

Several hundred tunnels

During the war, the Israelis heavily bombed the border area from where the tunnels originate in Gaza. The results of this action, coupled with the tightening of the economic siege, are the following: the number of tunnels has exploded from a few dozen to several hundred. The time required for a tunnel to be completed was previously 10 days. Now that the bombings have cleared the area in front of the border wall to Egypt, a tunnel is completed in approximately 4 days. After another 4 days, and the tunnel turns a profit.

Tents are covering the openings of the tunnels.

Cement and ice cream through tunnels

An enormous variety of goods crosses through the tunnels. When I went down to the border have a look, I could see tents covering the tunnels’ openings in plain sight on the Gaza side stacked end to end, going on for kilometers. And just a stone’s throw over the border wall was a heavily populated residential area in Egypt, so close that I could see the face of an Egyptian man on the roof of a building, watching the activity. Two young Hamas guards in uniform greet us when we arrive. When we tell them that we're an American and a Dane, they just shrug their shoulders – clearly having no great love for either country – before they greet me with a traditional Arabic welcome.

For those who can afford it, almost anything is available, though some items – such as cement – are unpredictably expensive. It was an odd experience to sit down to a wonderful meal at one of the nicer restaurants in Gaza – out of the reach of most of the population, but cheap by western standards – and know that almost everything on my plate, including the meat, the shrimp, the coca-cola, even the ice cream – came through a tunnel.

There is a tunnel for gasoline with a pipe running straight from Egypt into Gaza. As a result, gasoline in Gaza at the time of writing is 2.5 shekels per liter – half the price in Israel. Another tunnel is used exclusively for clothing. There are various systems for carrying the goods back and forth, including small carts on tracks, 4 wheel off road motorcycles, and reportedly even a car, its roof cut off, making an endless journey, back and forth, never going anywhere.

Using a very long "shopping basket" is one way of transporting goods in the tunnels.

Dangerous work

The sound of work in the tunnels is like a construction site, which indeed it is; there are piles of earth all over the place, and the sound of various digging machines fills the air. Once operational, most of the elevators operate an electrical elevator, powered by a generator, used to carry goods, personnel, and livestock.

The work is hard, dangerous, and underpaid, at about 1,500 shekels a month. Whilst I was in Gaza last week a cousin of a colleague died during a cave-in. He was alive and in contact with his rescuers for the first two and half days, and then he fell silent. After the requisite ‘fee’ was paid to the Egyptians on the other side, they extracted him, but by then it was too late. The word on the street has it that families of those who die in the tunnels receive 50,000 dollars.

But rumors abound. There is wild speculation about the amount of trade that passes through the tunnels. Most people seem to believe that they are enormously profitable. I even heard a story of an underground restaurant. Some of the tunnels are owned by Hamas, people say, but most are owned and operated by independent businessmen. Most people seemed to agree that whilst weapons used to flow freely through the tunnels, the Egyptians have agreed with Israelis to restrict the flow of anything larger than a Kalashnikov.