[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: With close to 1,000 tunnels operating and many
truckload flowing through them daily, it is hardly a "cat-and-mouse game"
for Egypt but instead that "Egyptians (are) reluctant to take tough measures
against the smugglers".]

Question: Don't all the geniuses who want to outsource Israel's security by
inviting in Egyptian and other forces to the Gaza Strip and West Bank
realize that the very same logic that drives Egypt's refusal to act
effectively would go into play there as well?]

Analysis: Perfume, Viagra, lions and fuel
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 14, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404731018&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Sixteen months after assuming full control over the Gaza Strip, Hamas
appears to be stronger than ever - largely thanks to the growing number of
tunnels that are used to smuggle goods and weapons under the border with
Egypt.

Israeli hopes that the embargo imposed on Gaza will eventually turn the
impoverished Palestinians living there against the Hamas government seem
unrealistic in light of the booming smuggling industry.

According to sources close to Hamas, the number of underground tunnels has
risen in the past two years to nearly 1,000.

Once, Palestinian groups used the tunnels mainly to smuggle weapons into the
Strip. But the tunnels have now become a vital tool in circumventing the
Israeli commercial blockade of the district.

It's no wonder the tunnels are no longer a secret, and foreign journalists
are being invited to visit them and interview their owners.

Hamas and its supporters have managed - through a carefully planned PR
campaign - to market the smuggling tunnels as the only available means to
prevent "starvation" in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leaders have even begun
referring to them as "Tunnels of Life" because large supplies of food and
medicine are being brought through them into Gaza on a daily basis.

The longer the blockade continues, the more sophisticated the tunnel-digging
process becomes. Today, engineers and well-trained excavators supervise the
digging of most of the tunnels, some of which are equipped with electricity
and phone lines.

Some of the tunnels are said to have more than one opening on the Egyptian
side so they can continue to function even after an entrance is discovered
and closed by the Egyptian authorities.

Hamas representatives said Thursday that while the tunnels wouldn't solve
the major problems of the Gaza Strip in the long term, they were proving to
be an effective tool in countering the Israeli blockade.

When milk, flour and gas cylinders don't come from Israel, they are easily
transferred through the many hundreds of tunnels. Who needs the Rafah border
crossing to be reopened when one can get to Egypt via an underground tunnel?
Who needs banks or Western Union when there can be subterranean transfers of
cash?

When Israel decided earlier this year to temporarily suspend fuel supplies
to the Gaza Strip in response to the rocket attacks on Israeli towns and
cities, the smugglers installed underground pipes that continue to pump
gasoline into the Gaza Strip. As a result, motorists there pay nearly half
the price they were paying several months ago to fill their cars.

Underground smuggling has become one of the most profitable and sought-after
professions in Gaza. Hundreds of unemployed laborers have joined the digging
business, where monthly salaries range from NIS 2,500 to NIS 5,000. Most of
the laborers used to work in Israel but lost their jobs because of the
closure of the border crossings.

"Today there's less demand for weapons in the Gaza Strip," said a veteran
Palestinian journalist who has been covering the tunnels story for over two
decades. "Today people want to eat and buy cheap goods from Egypt. That's
why they are smuggling everything, including sheep, calves, lions,
cigarettes, perfume, electrical appliances, food and even tens of thousands
of Viagra pills."

Both Israel and Egypt seem to have wearied of battling the underground
tunnel trade. The two countries today realize that this is a cat-and-mouse
game that needs to be dealt with on more than one front.

The major problem Israel and Egypt are facing is that there is no one in the
Gaza Strip to restore law and order along the border. On the contrary, Hamas
has long been involved in the smuggling business, and its members are said
to control many of the tunnels in Rafah.

Once, the smuggling business was mostly run by influential clans and
criminals. Today, it's an honor to be the owner of an underground tunnel,
and many of the Gaza Strip's respected businessmen are said to be part of
the industry.

The smugglers are boasting that they are actually performing "patriotic"
deeds, since they are helping their people circumvent the Israeli embargo.
Seventeen Palestinian diggers and smugglers who were killed when their
tunnels collapsed in the past few months have been declared shahids
(martyrs) by Hamas and their families.

This makes the Egyptians reluctant to take tough measures against the
smugglers, fearing they will be accused by the Arab world of complicity in
the "siege" against Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians.