Egypt Chokes Off Gaza

Photo Blog by Shuaib Abu Jahal

The Tunnels of Life are used by Gazans to get essential supplies into their besieged strip. Individual tunnels run for a few hundred meters from one side of the Egyptian-Palestinian border to the other.

Egypt's authorities have used an attack on the Egyptian military in Sinai last August as a pretext to start a campaign to destroy these Lifelines into Gaza. So far over 120 tunnels have been blown up or filled in.

More than just being the only way for some products to make it into the over 1.5 million Palestinians living in the strip, the Gaza tunnels have become a major source of income for the transporters of goods. At some point people working the tunnels were making $100 per day, but competition brought fees down to around $30 per day.