Sealing of tunnels cuts Gaza’s economic lifeline
Palestinian territory feels effects of turmoil in Egypt, write Saud Abu Ramadan and Jonathan Ferzigere
MUHAMMED Musa used to save more than $2,000 a month buying goat feed smuggled into the Gaza, until an Egyptian offensive shut the crawlways and forced the entrepreneur to import from Israel at a higher cost.
Sales at his farm-supply shop have dropped by half, as he joins the butchers, builders and others in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip struggling with the economic jolt caused by the toppling of Egypt’s Islamist government, the Palestinian Territory’s patron.
Mohamed Mursi’s election as Egypt’s president last year threw open doors to Hamas, an offshoot of his Muslim Brotherhood group that the US and European Union shun as a terrorist organisation. His July 3 removal by the military snapped the doors shut again. Egyptian forces have since demolished tunnels on concerns militants use them to attack security personnel in the Sinai peninsula.
Hamas Minister of Economics Ala al-Rafati said about 600 tunnels operated in the sandy soil of the border zone before Egypt went on an offensive on June 30, the day protests against Mr Mursi erupted, leading to his overthrow.
“Due to the ongoing Egyptian security campaign, 95% of the tunnels are inoperative,” Mr Rafati said. “This has caused severe losses to the Gaza Strip economy.”
He put the losses at $460m, or 18% of the territory’s gross domestic product.
The destruction of this economic pipeline has deepened the hardship in the territory of 1.7million people, where six out of every 10 live on less than $2 a day, according to the United Nations.
“The political upheaval in Egypt has battered the Gaza Strip economy and crippled manufacturing and agriculture,” said economist Hamed Jad.
Gaza, a 40km sliver of Mediterranean coastline, came to rely on a smuggling network after Israel and Egypt blockaded it to squeeze Hamas, which took control there in 2007 and split from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Even after Israel eased its embargo in 2010, tunnels kept operating because the Israelis did not let everything in and smuggled goods were cheaper.
For Hamas, the tunnels were a bonanza. Barred from foreign aid to the Palestinians for refusing to renounce violence against Israel, it slapped taxes on the smuggled goods. Its government earned 40% of its revenue from those levies.
Although Egyptian forces would shut tunnels under Mr Mursi, sometimes flooding them with raw sewage, his downfall freed the military to act more forcefully as assaults multiplied.
Last month 25 police officers were killed in an ambush in Sinai.
The supply of fuel and construction materials has been “sharply reduced”, Deputy Economy Minister Hatem Ouwida said.
Passenger traffic through Egypt’s northern border with Gaza, which increased under Mr Mursi, has also been tightened because of instability in Sinai.
According to Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, 11,449 people exited the Rafah terminal for Egypt in July and last month, 72% fewer than the monthly average for the first half of this year.
Egypt shut the passenger terminal at Rafah yesterday after a deadly bombing at an intelligence headquarters in northern Sinai in which six soldiers were killed, according to the Egyptian military.
While Mr Mursi never gave Gaza the full freedom of movement it sought, his ascent to power did break down barriers. The emir of Qatar gave Hamas unprecedented political recognition in October as the first foreign head of state to visit during its rule. He capped the trip pledging more than $400m to build houses, a hospital and roads. Much of the diplomatic capital has since evaporated.
Qatar has been unable to get construction materials across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza since Mr Mursi’s removal, according to Zeyad Zaza, the Hamas government’s deputy prime minister.
The renewed isolation hits especially hard because Hamas can no longer rely on traditional patrons Iran and Syria.
Relations soured after the Palestinian group quit its Damascus base to protest against Syria’s deadly crackdown on opponents.
In its attempt to contain militant activity in Sinai, Egypt’s military is also tightening co-operation with Israel, which too has been attacked from the territory, which borders on its southern flank.
An Islamist group said an Israeli-drone strike killed four of its militants in Sinai this month.
While Egypt said its air force, not Israel’s, carried out the attack, either version would exceed the limits to military operations in Sinai laid down in the two sides’ 1979 peace accord.
In the meantime, things look bleak for tunnel operators such as Abu Emad, who employed 30 people importing sheep, calves and cleaning supplies.
“I miss the good old days when we were working round the clock,” he said, sitting near the mouth of a demolished 350m tunnel.
“I don’t believe Egypt’s going to let us operate again,” Mr Emad said.