Overview
Rafah is located on the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Because of this strategic location, it accommodated tunnels and has a history of smuggling. These tunnels were and are mainly used by Palestinian militant organizations and gangs for weapon smuggling and bringing cheap goods from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. The tunnels connect the Egyptian town of Rafah with the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah. The tunnels are primarily used to smuggle illegal arms (e.g. rockets and mortars) to Gaza militants. The tunnels have also been subsequently used to smuggle people (in and out) and commercial materials like recreational drugs, medicine, food and clothes, cigarettes, alcohol, construction materials, cars and vehicle parts into Gaza. Tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt were discovered as early as 1997.
The tunnels are normally dug by individual contractors from basements of houses or an olive grove under the border at depths of up to 15 meters (49 feet), reaching up to 800 meters (2640 feet) in length. In many cases, the owners of the houses enter into a business arrangement with the tunnel builders. They may receive a portion of the profits from the smuggling or some other sort of financial compensation from those who contract the tunnel construction.
According to an Al-Jazeera report (July 2010) the Gaza tunnels are going out of business: But now that Israel is allowing more goods into Gaza, the smugglers have started going out of business. More than 150 tunnel operations have closed and thousands of people risk losing their jobs.
Read more about this topic: Gaza Strip Smuggling Tunnels