According to Ahlul Bayt (A) News Agency – ABNA.ir – Palestinian police accused Egyptian security forces of killing four Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and injuring three others on Wednesday by blowing up their cross-border tunnel.
Under pressure from Israel, Gazans live under heavy Israel siege for a long time and Egypt still insists on not to opening the only Gaza border crossing in a move condemned by Muslims around the world in protests, leaving Gazans desperate to digging tunnels underground and risking their lives.
Detonating a bomb underground, Egyptian security forces collapsed a tunnel in which seven smugglers were working on Wednesday, a Palestinian police official said. Three died of smoke inhalation and a fourth from flying debris.
The other three tunnellers were admitted with injuries to a hospital in Rafah, a Palestinian town on the Egyptian border.
Egypt, now building an underground wall along the frontier, does not generally discuss its anti-tunnelling efforts.
Many Egyptians sympathise with the Palestinians and the Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza and refuse to forswear violence againt the Jewish state.
Gazas economy is dependent on the tunnels, increasingly under attack by both Israeli and Egyptian forces. Tens have been killed in the underground system over the past months, and dozens more over the nearly three years of Gaza siege. The industry remains, however, the only growing work opportunity in Gaza.
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