Love of the Land: Gaza glutted with smuggled goods - profitability of tunnels plummets

Gaza glutted with smuggled goods - profitability of tunnels plummets

Avi Issacharoff
Haaretz
17 February '10

Owners of the smuggling tunnels bordering the Gaza Strip and Egypt have been suffering from financial problems due to their tunnels' inactivity, according to Palestinian sources.

The reason, it turns out, actually stems from the overall success of smuggling tunnels in Gaza. Hamas has recently set up 'legal' tunnels, which they use to smuggle various merchandise. As a result, existing, non-Hamas run tunnels are suffering financially.

The Hamas tunnels are used to bring in merchandise intended for sale in markets, such as food products and home appliances. Palestinians believe that the overflow of goods caused a complete smuggling standstill in dozens of underground channels. Moreover, work on digging additional tunnels has also stopped.

The tunnel owners explain that the increase in merchandise in Gaza made prices sharply decrease, which seriously reduced the earnings from the 'illegal' smuggling industry. One of the tunnel owners told a news agency that he is waiting for a reasonable business offer to come along, because at the moment it isn't profitable for him to open the channel to smuggling.

In 2008, the smuggling tunnel trade flourished due to the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and was also strong in 2009 in spite of growing Egyptian surveillance of the tunnels, which endangered diggers and smugglers. Since June of 2007, over 100 Palestinians lost their lives in tunnel collapses.

The Hamas-run tunnels, which are deemed legal by the government, are now experiencing continuous activity. Under Hamas rule, hundreds of underground channels have been dug between Gaza and Egypt.

The recent increase in smuggled goods in Gaza caused many factories to renew activity. Overall, if judging by the two most smuggled products - gasoline and cement - tunnel activity has actually caused Gaza to experience an economic reawakening.

Ultimately, the tunnel owners' crisis came from being overly successful. "The last two weeks were the worst in the smuggling tunnel trade since the blockade in June of 2007," said a tunnel owner.

Love of the Land: Gaza glutted with smuggled goods - profitability of tunnels plummets

Love of the Land: Egypt's Gaza smugglers shrug off reports of border barrier

Egypt's Gaza smugglers shrug off reports of border barrier

Samer al-Atrush
Telegraph.co.uk
15 December 09

Trucks filled with contraband trundle along on a road leading to Egypt's frontier with the besieged Gaza Strip. Their cargo will be sorted into bags and then slipped into Gaza through the tunnels.

"That one has concrete," said Abu Khaled, as he parked his mud-camouflaged pick-up by the side of the road. The gaunt, bearded Bedouin operates a tunnel himself, and specialises in supplying the Palestinian enclave with concrete.

For a man wanted by the police for smuggling, Abu Khaled is remarkably upbeat about his prospects. He shrugged off reports that the authorities were constructing an underground barrier to sever the tunnels into Gaza.

"It shouldn't pose a problem," he said.

The smugglers have long been accustomed to outwitting frontier guards. They react to the sight of heavy machinery digging along the border and inserting pipes and metal sheets into the ground with a mixture of amusement and scorn. The barrier will reportedly reach a depth of between 18 and 30 metres (60 to 100 feet), but the smugglers say they can easily burrow beneath it.

"They're taking American money and dumping it into the ground," said one smuggler in the border town of Rafah, giving his name as Mohammed.

No one along the border believes that Egypt will ever be able - or willing - to end the smuggling that provides the people of Gaza with food, fuel and weapons. Israel enforced a semi-blockade of the territory after the Islamist movement Hamas seized it in 2007.

"There's a whole cocktail of reasons why it won't work," said Abu Ahmed, a Bedouin arms trader. The police are corrupt, he says, the Bedouin and other smugglers are resourceful, and if Egypt cuts the underground lifeline to Gaza people there may inundate Sinai, as they did briefly in 2008 after Hamas blasted the border wall.

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Love of the Land: Egypt's Gaza smugglers shrug off reports of border barrier