Gaza cross-border tunnel / IDF Spokesperson’s Office
Three Palestinians died on Thursday after the Egyptian military pumped toxic gas into a cross-border smuggling tunnel stretching from the Gaza Strip to the Sinai peninsula, Palestinian media has reported.
Egypt has destroyed more than 3,000 tunnels along its border with the Gaza Strip in the past six years, Egyptian Army Spokesperson Tamer Al-Refai said in 2020. Egypt says that the tunnels have been used to threaten the country’s national security, including the infiltration of terrorists, smuggling of weapons, ammunition, goods, narcotic drugs and vehicles.
In 2019, two Palestinians died and several others were wounded after Egyptian troops pumped toxic fumes into a cross-border tunnel, and in February 2017, three Palestinians were killed in a tunnel between Gaza and Sinai in similar circumstances.
In 2009, Egypt began building a steel border barrier along the 7.5 mile border with Gaza to stop the smuggling tunnels. Construction started in February 2020 on a new concrete wall equipped with electronic sensors that runs 2 miles along the Gaza-Egypt border. Human rights groups have accused the Hamas terror group that rules Gaza of using child labour in the smuggling tunnels.
