News / Palestine

Egyptian army forces demolish dozen more Gaza lifeline tunnels

Monday, 02 January 2017 6:49 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 02 January 2017 6:49 PM ]

In this file photo, a Palestinian man works outside a lifeline tunnel, which connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Egyptian military forces have demolished a dozen tunnels between the country's Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which have been used by Gazans to bring basic needs into the blockaded territory.

Colonel Tamer al-Rifai, an Egyptian army spokesman, announced in a statement on Monday that government forces had found and destroyed the underground tunnels along the border with the impoverished enclave.

He did not provide any further details about the demolition operations.

Dozens of people, mostly Palestinians, have lost their lives during the destruction of tunnels, which has intensified following the ouster of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in a military coup in 2013 by then army chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Israel and the Egyptian military have launched a campaign to destroy the tunnels, preventing the people in Gaza from bringing in most of their basic goods like construction materials, food, and fuel into the coastal enclave.

Tunnels are the only lifeline for Palestinians living under the Israeli siege and Egypt has so far destroyed hundreds of them.

Two members of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, were killed and three went missing in December 2016, after a lifeline tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, identified the slain pair as Rami Muneer al-Arier and Ismail Abdul Kareem Shamali.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.

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