Smashed border fence costs Gaza's smugglers

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"This was a bad week to be a Gaza smuggler.

When militants smashed open Gaza's border wall last week, many people in the Hamas-run enclave went on a shopping spree in Egypt -- bad news for the men who make fat profits smuggling goods made scarce by an Israeli-led blockade.

Dozens of underground tunnels crisscross the frontier between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and tunnel operators make thousands of dollars per night by smuggling in everything from medicine to weapons, and even people.

Tunnel owner Abu Yassin said a customer cancelled a $150,000 job to smuggle 15 tonnes of medicine into the Gaza Strip on the night Hamas gunmen blasted open the border fence and shoppers streamed into Egypt. Since then, business has been dead.

"People bought all they needed by crossing the border in daylight and for free. We have had no business for a week," Abu Yassin told Reuters in the border town of Rafah, declining to give his full name."

more

[bemildred]

1. Damn shame, that.

:sarcasm:

[Hannah Bell]

2. Interesting.

So if there's these tunnels, & it's public knowledge, why hasn't Israel shut them down?

[bemildred]

3. Such things have been done from time to time.

But the Gazans are highly motivated, and they just keep digging more.

Also, though the tunnels existence is common knowledge, their location is not. And running around in Gaza looking for tunnels can get you shot, which persuades most people to mind their own business.

[Hannah Bell]

4. Hmm. n/t