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Eight Palestinian workers were rescued in a commercial tunnel linking Rafah to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, after the Egyptian armed forces attempted to crush it with water
. Palestinian workers rescued Mada Masr, under cover of anonymity, to tell them that "the rescue operation lasted nearly an hour." They were able to go out with the help of the members of civil society and the efforts of those present. "
The tunnel was used to transport cigarettes between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, and according to one of the rescued workers," While we were working, we had heard the noise of the pumps, we left everything and came back running. "
Since 2012, the Egyptian armed forces have implemented a policy to collapse commercial tunnels between Rafah and
According to a source close to the family, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, the eight workers, all from the Shaer family and aged between 18 and 30, do not belong to the family. were not injured in the incident.
One of the most iers who was in the tunnel and spoke to Mada Masr under the guise of anonymity said: "Running fast in a tunnel is impossible, because the height of the tunnel requires you to kneel and then run. The electricity goes out as soon as the water is pumped and you run with the fear of an electric current. "
The young man said that as the workers were cleaning the final part of the tunnel, the water had covered the low waters, half of their bodies, and they had been pulled out by rescue teams. he said, adding: "It's a bad feeling when we run away from death.
Armed Forces spokesman Tamer al-Rifai on Tuesday issued 25th communiqué Operation Sinai 2018 in which he stated that the military was able to destroy a number of tunnels in the Egyptian city of Rafah "in the last days", in addition to a series of other military and security activities in northern Sinai
. in response to a militant attack on an Egyptian military checkpoint near Rafah in August 2012, during which 15 soldiers were killed. In 2015, two years after the Egyptian army overthrew Morsi and seized power, there were more than tunnels out of the remaining 250 Egyptian armed forces resorting to to tunnels flooding the sea water. which threatened to destroy the surroundings.
The underground economy, composed of approximately 1,532 tunnels under the 12-kilometer border at its peak, flourished between 2007 and 2013 and serves as a lifeline to thousands of families living in the stranded Gaza Strip. Gaza depends on the goods that pbad through it, including fuel, weapons, food, medicine, clothing, household appliances and building materials, such as steel and cement, which are banned by Israeli forces
. the World Bank estimated that the volume of trade by tunnels exceeded that of official channels.
The few remaining tunnels were also attacked [israéliennes et égyptiennes] .
The flooding of the tunnel by Egyptian military forces on Tuesday – the latest of these attacks – was reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that evening.
In February of last year, there were several incidents where the armed forces destroyed commercial tunnels between Egyptian Rafah and Gaza, killing a number of Palestinians. On February 13, 22-year-old Momin Abu Hamed was killed after the armed forces destroyed one of the tunnels. Palestinian rescue teams were unable to recover his body from debris during the rescue efforts. Later that same month three Palestinians were killed and five others were injured as a result of a similar attempt by the Egyptian army to demolish tunnels.
In November 2016, four men were killed while working in a commercial tunnel linking Rafah to Gaza, after the armed forces pumped water into the tunnel , resulting in the imprisonment and injuries of 20 workers. Following these incidents, Hamas accused the Egyptian authorities of killing Palestinians using toxic gas while it was destroying these commercial tunnels in February 2017, according to Israelis. 19659005] Haaretz newspaper.
The authorities of Gaza had earlier asked the Egyptian and Israeli authorities that the opening of the border would eliminate the need for smuggling of tunnels, which are currently used as lifelines for the 1.9 million people in the Gaza Strip. inhabitants of Gaza. They are used to smuggle essential consumer goods and materials for reconstruction, in addition to weapons, into the Gaza Strip.
The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been open periodically for only a few days. . However, during Ramadan this year, the authorities opened the crossing for nearly a month. Ramzy Abul Qumsan, a public relations officer at the General Palestinian Agency for Crossings and Borders (GACB) previously estimated that during these brief openings, about 1,000 people are allowed to go out from Gaza. [19659002TheMiddleEasterners reported that between 160 and 400 Palestinians died while digging or using tunnels since the beginning of the Gaza blockade in 2007.
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