Egypt reports firing from Gaza

Dubai: Egyptian security officials say unidentified gunmen in Gaza have directed fire at workers installing an underground metal barrier to seal off weapons smuggling tunnels.

The officials say no one was hurt but some equipment had been damaged in Thursday's shooting. Hamas border officials in Gaza confirmed shots were fired twice towards Egyptian workers.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to reporters.

The border project is one of a series of measures Egypt has taken to crack down on smuggling since the end of Israel's war on Gaza last winter.

Palestinians have spoken out as one against Egypt's move to erect the barrier and stressed that the only solution for the clandestine movement of goods is to open borders between the two countries.

A Gaza resident who runs a shop offering telecommunication services said the only way to stop smuggling is to unconditionally open the borders from the Egyptian side. The man, who spoke to Gulf News on condition of anonymity, said Gazans would explore every possible avenue for their basic needs and no wall in the world could stop them from doing so.

"I agree with Egypt on intensifying its pressure on Hamas to sign a conciliatory deal with the Palestinian National Authority and Fatah in Ramallah. No Palestinian is willing to see the division between the two parties continue and we are all with Egypt in its effort to end this situation, but erecting an underground metal fence to end smuggling is not practical because it means that the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the strip will be deprived of their basic human needs," a home appliances dealer who indentified himself as Marwan told Gulf News.

Asserting that his political affiliation had never been with Hamas, he said t least 40 per cent of Palestinians in Gaza felt the same way. Therefore, he observed, a collective punishment like cutting off the lifeline to Gaza was not the right way to punish Hamas.

Porous stretch

Sari Al Qudra, editor-in-chief of the Gaza-based Al Sabah newspaper said no arrangement could absolutely end smuggling along the 10-km border even if that meant inserting metal barriers that went down 30 metres into the earth.

He said the 10-km stretch of border dividing the town of Rafah was believed to have more than 1,500 tunnels that were used day and night to smuggle essential commodities into Gaza. "The tunnels are a costly means of evading the blocked on Gaza and the only way to stop the operation is with opening the border gates to allow for the movement of goods and people in a legal way.

Al Qudra said he couldn't believe the Egyptians were not able to grasp this simple fact. "If [talk about] the underground metal fence is true, it would be an ill-advised US-Israeli idea that the Egyptian government could not resist or argue against."

He said he was not with Hamas in its rejection of a deal with Fatah to end the division in Palestinian ranks since July 2007, when Hamas took over security duties in the enclave. That, however, was not to be construed as tacit approval for any move to starve people to death in Gaza, he added. "I was a victim of the Israeli blockade on Gaza when my car broke down because of a faulty spare part. I had to wait for ten days to order the part from Egypt and smuggle it through tunnels. I have noting to do with Hamas and the spare part I had to smuggle in is not used anywhere as a component in rockets; so why do I have to suffer because of the blockade."

Al Qudra said even Palestinians, including those supportive of Fatah, had invested heavily in tunnels and would use every means at their disposal to rescue their investments. "I think the total cost of tunnels on the Palestinian economy is $75 million (Dh275 million).

"It costs an average of $50,000 to dig a tunnel between a point in Rafah on the Gaza side to Egypt. The cost varies, according to the size of the tunnel, the length and the depth of it. The operators of these tunnels on the both side of the border will not stop smuggling everyday essentials to Gaza and will still find ways past such barriers if that meant having to go past a sheet of metal nearly 35 centimetre thick.

For Abu Sofian, his comrades and his partners on the Egyptian side of the border who operate tunnels, life has never been easy and the metal fence the Egyptians are now putting up in the desert will not serve any better as a deterrent.

In a telephone interview, Sofian told Gulf News that he started the business of tunnels in 2004 when the enclave was still under Israeli occupation. "The tunnel, during the time of Israelis, was used for smuggling goods not permitted by the Israelis, including industrial equipment and goods which Israelis banned throughout their 30-year occupation of the strip for fear they would be used for military purposes.

"The tunnels have become more important to life in Gaza after three states [started] taking part in the surveillance of the 10-km long border. Egypt, Israel and the US are all involved in surveillance of the border, but this did not stop smuggling. We have our ways of breaking the blockade and the metal-barrier that goes as deep as 30 metres will not help in stopping the trade through tunnels."

— With inputs from AP