Egypt starts work on Gaza border wall to block smuggling tunnels

Gaza: Egyptian earth-moving machinery was at work on the Gaza Strip border on Wednesday and an Israeli newspaper said a project was under way to build a subterranean metal wall to block Palestinian smuggling tunnels.

Witnesses in the Gaza border town of Rafah said they could see Egyptian vehicles working just across the fenced frontier but not what they were doing precisely.

Egyptian security sources said the authorities had started digging and placing steel tubes through the ground at several points on the border, without giving details.

Sulaiman Awad, a council representative on the Egyptian side of Rafah, which straddles the border, said the authorities had uprooted trees along the boundary to pave a dirt road and plant devices to monitor and secure the border.

He also did not give details about the work on the border, where smugglers have built tunnels to take goods into blockaded Gaza.

Israel says the tunnels are also used to supply the Hamas group with explosives and arms.

Compensated

Awad said farmers affected by the work on the border were being compensated with about 150 Egyptian pounds (Dh100) per peach tree and 250 pounds for each olive tree.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Egypt was installing an underground metal wall about 20 to 30 metres deep along the short border strip where Palestinians have dug a warren of tunnels to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Haaretz said the wall would be nearly 10 kilometres long and "impossible to cut or melt".

Egyptian officials could not be reached to comment on the Haaretz report. Hamas, which rules Gaza, said it was checking.