Egyptians destroy another tunnel on Palestine border

The Egyptian army announced on Friday that it has destroyed another tunnel on the border with Palestine, Anadolu has reported.

“In cooperation with the military engineers,” said an army website statement, “the border guard forces of the Second Field Brigade discovered and destroyed a new tunnel on the border of north Sinai.”

Since the military coup against the first freely-elected Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013, the army has been searching for and destroying tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip systematically. The tunnels were used by the Palestinians to break the Israeli-led blockade and were described by foreign journalists as “Gaza’s lifeline”.

Since September last year, the Egyptian army has flooded the border zone with seawater in a bid to destroy any tunnels which it has been unable to locate. The seawater has not only damaged tunnels but also the Palestinians’ already scarce underground water reserves, and has polluted the soil. Infrastructure in the city of Rafah has been undermined by the flooding.

When, in October 2014, the Egyptian army started to set up a two kilometre-wide buffer zone along the border with Gaza, it claimed that it was part of the effort to fight terrorism. Observers say that the main reason is to demonstrate Egypt’s support for the Israeli siege, and “terrorism” is simply a convenient excuse.