Hoping for a life at the end of the tunnel

Gaza: Many of Gaza's network of tunnels are now abandoned and are used only to import goods that are banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip including construction materials and fuel. However, sometimes people who do not have an Israeli identity are smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels bordering Egypt.

Unlike Israeli claims that these tunnels bring nothing but weapons and death, many Palestinians believe that they bring hope and reunite Palestinian families.

M.O., a smuggler at one of these tunnels, said: "As dark and desolated as these tunnels may look, I myself have witnessed many families reunite after years of separation as well as brides meeting their grooms for the very first time. In fact, I see them happy, excited and dusty."

Harron's is one of the families which remained separated for almost ten years due to Israeli laws and restrictions that control Palestinian movement and residency.

Dangerous

"We were living together in Baghdad and neither me nor my husband had an Israeli ID, so we received a visit permit to Gaza in 1999. My husband first went with my two daughters to Gaza in order to organise our new place while I stayed here for a while to complete the formalities for the children," A. Harron says.

"Just a week after his arrival, the Intifada [uprising] started, making it impossible for us to reunite in Gaza, so we remained separated for over ten years.

"Living in Baghdad became rather dangerous so I decided with one of my daughters to go to Gaza while the other two went to Yemen. Both of us tried to enter through the Rafah gate for over three weeks but couldn't."

S. Harron, her daughter, said: "My mother and I and another woman were led by a smuggler through the tunnel which was narrow, muddy and reeked.

The smuggler told us that it would last 15 minutes but it felt as if it took forever. Most of the time, we had to bend down while walking, but at the end of the tunnel I saw my father for the first time in 10 years. I dropped everything in my hands and started to cry on his shoulder for all the years wasted apart."

Israel denies mobility to Palestinians: HRW

Years after its Gaza Strip pullout, Israel still controls the territory's population registry, as well as that of the West Bank, giving it a veto on which Palestinians can hold travel documents, Human Rights Watch has said.

"Israel's control over the population registry has significantly reduced the registered Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza, probably by hundreds of thousands of people," the New York-based HRW said in a 90-page report.

It said that only residents acknowledged by Israel are able to acquire a Palestinian ID card, which is essential for internal travel though Israeli roadblocks and is also a prerequisite for obtaining a Palestinian passport.

"This way Israel's military has exercised its control over the Palestinian population registry... has separated families, caused people to lose jobs and educational opportunities, barred people from entering the Palestinian territories, and trapped others inside them," HRW said.

"A survey, conducted in 2005 on behalf of the Israeli rights group B'tselem, estimated that more than 640,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza had a parent, sibling, child, or spouse who was unregistered," it added in the report, entitled "Forget about him, he's not here." "From 2000 onward, for instance, Israel denied unregistered Palestinians entry to Gaza, which it completely controlled until 2005 and which remained largely sealed off even after Hamas took over the territory in 2007," HRW said.