Posted on 09/20/15
| News Source: VIN
Gaza City - Gaza’s Hamas rulers are calling on Egypt to halt a project aimed at destroying the last remaining smuggling tunnels along the border.
The project is being billed as an Egyptian military-operated fish farm that would effectively fill the border area with water. Egyptian military officials have said the fish farm is designed to shut down tunnels used to bring in militants and weapons.
Hamas has said that the project further isolates the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the militant group seized power in 2007. Hamas said Sunday the project “represents a great danger” to homes on the Palestinian side and to groundwater.
Last week smugglers said a tunnel collapsed after it was flooded. There was no immediate comment from Egyptian officials.
A Palestinian youth shows how to abseil into one of the tunnels on the Gaza side after Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels beneath the border to the Gaza strip, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 19 September 2015. The Egyptian army has begun to pump water from the Mediterranean Sea into underground smuggling tunnels connecting Sinai with the Gaza Strip, security officials and eye witnesses reported on 18 September 2015. Gaza, administered by the Islamic Hamas movement, remains under a tight blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt. EPA/MOHAMMED SABER