RAMALLAH – The Hamas government Monday announced the closure of underground tunnels along the Salah Eddin route on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Maher Abu Sabheh, head of Interior Ministry's crossings directorate, said that the decision comes “to save the lives of Palestinians as several tunnels collapsed from the stormy weather last week.” Abu Sabheh said several workers were killed when the tunnels collapsed. On Sunday one Palestinian was killed and three others were evacuated as a result of the collapse of a tunnel. Ashref Al-Ajrami, the spokesman of the Palestinian Civil Defense Department, said that Palestinian rescue teams have been conducting searches after six workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel near Salah Eddin route were not responding. The tunnels are sponsored by the Hamas-run government. Palestinian sources said that the some 1,200 tunnels were used to smuggle heavy equipment, people to and from Gaza as well as food and fuel to cope with Israel's siege of the coastal enclave. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said recently that “800 millionaires and 1,600 near-millionaires control the tunnels at the expense of both Egyptian and Palestinian national interests.” On last August, Egypt temporarily closed its borders with Gaza after allegations that militants who killed 16 of its soldiers had passed through the tunnels. Israel imposed an economic siege on the Gaza Strip in June 2006 when Hamas-led armed groups kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross border raid near the enclave. Israel tightened the siege in June 2007, when Hamas routed security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and ousted his Fatah movement from the area. It calls its Gaza blockade a precaution against weapons reaching Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups by sea. Palestinians and their supporters say the blockade is illegal collective punishment. Under heavy international pressure, Israel eased the blockade in 2010 after an Israeli naval raid killed nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Gaza-bound ship.
