Hey everyone, today we’re taking a deep look into the tunnels built along the Gaza
Strip to smuggle goods into and out of Gaza.
And to do that, we’ve teamed up with the folks over at Seeker Stories.
Here’s what we found.
So, the Egyptian military recently announced that it’s building a number of fish farms
right on the border with Gaza.
That seems like a weird thing for Egypt to be doing, and an even weirder place to be
doing it.
And weirder still?
Egypt sees the fish farms as part of their counterterrorism strategy.
As you might’ve guessed, there’s a lot more going on here.
The site of the future fisheries is Rafah, a town that sits half in Egypt and half in
the Gaza Strip.
That border became a very big deal in 2007 when the organization Hamas took control of
Gaza...Hamas’s military arm was a big security concern for both Egypt and Israel, and both
countries basically closed their borders with Gaza.
This has meant a severe blockade of the Gaza Strip - the flow of goods in and out is extremely
limited.
For Gazans, the blockade has inspired some creativity: namely, a network of secret tunnels
between the Gazan and Egyptian sides of Rafah.
The tunnels have been used to smuggle in all manner of goods, from fuel, construction materials,
and tools, to dry foods, cigarettes, and livestock.
It’s been a big industry for years, with some estimates placing the number of tunnels
in the thousands.
Depending on who you ask, the tunnels are either a godsend or a curse.
Israel has called them “arteries of terror,” out of fear that they’re helping weapons
get to Hamas.
Hamas, on the other hand, happily collects taxes on anything passing through the tunnels...and
has admitted to getting weapons that way too.
And then there’s Egypt.
The Egyptian military has long feared that the tunnels could allow terrorists to sneak
across the border, and has done a lot to shutter them.
In 2009 they built an underground wall almost 60 feet deep beneath the crossing.
Smugglers breached it within a year.
In 2013 they pumped raw sewage into the tunnels.
Smugglers, presumably, plugged their noses.
And then, this past August, the military began construction of the fish farms.
Which sounds ridiculous...except that it involved pumping untold gallons of seawater into the
border area...which utterly swamped the tunnel system.
According to one tunnel builder, the result was devastating.
"They have destroyed everything in 20 days.
During the 50-day war the Israelis rockets couldn't do such a thing and ten days after
the war we were able to get this business back.
But now we are unable to do get our business back.
All the tunnels have collapsed."
The ruination of the tunnel system is great news for the Egyptian military, bad news for
Hamas, but maybe the worst news of all for the Gazan people.
Legal or otherwise, the tunnels were an employer in Rafah and an important release valve for
the pressures of the blockade.
All of that may be gone now...which just the latest in a series of hardships for the residents
of Rafah.
Most of them are refugees and their families, displaced from Israel as long ago as 1948.
Many were separated from family and friends when the border split the town in two.
And they’ve seen homes and buildings demolished by Israel in an attempt to rout out the tunnels.
Now those tunnels are gone...and they’re left wondering just what is going on across
that border in Egypt.
"We respect our neighbors, we love the Egyptians, because we are connected and we are relatives,
but our neighbors are making our lives harder, they have caused us a lot of damage."
Hey again - If you liked that investigation, Seeker Stories has a lot more deep dives into
some issues you might like.
They’ve got stories about the USSR’s 40 year program conducting secret nuclear tests,
along with an inside look at a violent riot at the Hungarian border.
So click on any of those boxes to watch now.
Thanks for watching our channel!
See you next time.