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Gaza's Defiant Tunnelers Head Deeper Underground

(Independent-UK) Robert Fisk - Abdul-Halim al-Mohsen is worried about the Egyptians. "Of course I'm afraid of the Egyptian wall," he says. "They will pour water down. How can we defeat this? We may drown." The tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egyptian frontier are a business, a professional's game. There's even a four-truck miniature railway down one of the shafts. Money makes the wheels go round. NGOs estimate that Hamas skims 15% of the profits off the tunnelers' turnover, giving them $350 million per annum. So Hamas supplies itself with all the concrete, building materials, iron and weapons that its plentiful supplies of money can buy. Hamas itself has more than enough cement to build a city of bunkers, not to mention the buildings it has erected opposite Israeli troops at the Erez crossing. The yellow shaft of an Egyptian drilling machine stands against the horizon. Behind it, an Egyptian flag snaps above a watchtower where the soldiers of Arab Egypt ensure that their Arab Palestinian brothers stay besieged in the rubbish pit of Gaza.
2010-02-10 10:34:59
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