Going underground

Approximately 1,500 tunnels of various sizes, all covered by wind-whipped tarpaulin, interweave across the 5km Rafah town fringe within a stone’s throw of Egypt, and each provides work for 40 labourers, many cramped for up to three days in damp, desperate darkness. The men sweat off an average of two kilos a day from the sauna-like environment. Of the estimated 30,000 Palestinians tied to the burgeoning tunnel smuggling industry in Rafah, a rising number of young men are turning to the synthetic morphine-like painkiller Tramadol. They take it, they say, to combat fears of sporadic Israeli F-16 jet attacks, tunnel collapses, Egyptian grenades and, perhaps worst of all, raw sewage spillages from the houses above. “Without camaraderie and drugs, we would go mad,” asserts another youthful smuggler. “There have been times I have stayed in utter darkness for up to 20 hours.” 

 

The tunnels have emerged as a reprieve from Israel’s crippling political and economic embargo that was imposed after Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007.

 

The blockade, encompassing all land, sea and air transport, has all-but choked the economic development of the 

1.5 million residents in one of the most densely populated areas on earth. According to John Ging, the notoriously outspoken head of the United Nation’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza strip, of the 130,000 Gazans employed in the private sector before the siege, a staggering 120,000 have lost their jobs as the industrial market collapsed. “The only economy we have is from the tunnelling, but it is really a subsistence economy keeping people alive,” stresses Ging. “There is no future in this, no industry, commercial centre, nor freedom of travel for whatever purpose. This is a subsistence existence depriving people of basic dignity and human rights.” 

The Rafah tunnels actually emerged not to transport food, but to provide a key link to supply resistance groups with arms in the first Intifada. However, when the blockage began in 2007, the network quickly transformed itself into Gaza’s only portal to the outside world, a one-way ticket for commercial goods, livestock and, occasionally, humans into and out of the Strip. Along with a lifeline for goods and economy, the tunnels supply endless fodder for black jokes – as a discussion about brides, donkeys, Tramadol and tunnels inevitably would.

 

Ahmed, 20, who goes by his tunnel nickname “the lion”, utilises a lot of humour when discussing his tunnel misadventures. “Look, we see it all, but for some reason we never get tired of seeing donkeys plodding along. And I swear to God, the donkeys try to refuse to come, somehow they know they are going to Gaza and try to resist for their lives. As for brides who come here… wow, they must really be in love.” 

 

Working in the tunnels since he was 15, Ahmed speculates that his tunnel vision yields no surprises. He says he has seen professors, cows, donkeys, journalists, brides and even EU delegations smuggled through from Egypt. Having lost his father in an Israeli airplane raid in 2004, he is now the sole provider for his family, raking in a modest $700 dollars a month. He does not own a motorcycle but smuggles them in, reserving his funds for his family and for his mobile phone romancing. Luckily, if that’s the word, his beloved already resides inside Gaza, but a fairly conservative society and very little café culture in Rafah relegates romantic escapades to more virtual liaisons. Despite his unceasing humour, he concedes that he is tired of the dangers, the hard work and the risks, especially to recoup a minimal profit at the end of it all. And he has seen many tunnel deaths, including his own cousin in front of his eyes, to be unaware of the inherent dangers.

 

Mohammad claims that for Palestinian Gazans, the only way to dream, dare, or achieve is through the tunnels and the internet. He met his 23-year-old wife through Skype videoconferences with his family in Ramallah, and she was delivered via the tunnel from Egypt after he’d arranged an epic journey for his fiancée to travel with her mother from the West Bank to Jordan then on to Sinai and finally, as an expectant bride, at the mouth of earthen passage. The 1.2km tunnel that separated the pair, he tells us, had been targeted by the Israelis earlier that day. 

 

“We are challenging the Israelis and their denial of our dreams,” he stressed. “Our siege will even come from underwater.” His burst of pride subsides to a flicker of worry as he surveys the room. Also earning just $25 a month from the near-defunct Palestinian Authority in Gaza, his bold actions drained him financially: the journey from the West Bank to Sinai cost him $2,000, with an additional $2,000 for the tunnel journey. The very real economic siege of Gaza might yet dampen his dreams as 

he struggles to provide for his new wife. 

 

Having worked with the tunnels since 1994, the owner, who doesn’t offer his name, has witnessed the changes in the tunnels, the use of which, he says, reveals an interesting metaphor on Gazan society. “Rafah differs for the rest of the Strip,” he says. “The tunnels used to have a history of resistance, but now it is pure business and survival. It’s all money... it’s like the Godfather films.”

 

“I expect this from the Israelis, but from an Arab neighbour? The Egyptians are playing dirty with us and I will not take another no from them to bring her here,” he stressed. “Of course, she is my future wife, I do not want her crawling through a tunnel and I fear for her life, but this is the only option they leave us.” 

 

Taymour has not set an official date – to leave, that is, not to get married – but has family links to the tunnels and is already planning his wedding if the traditional border crossing option remains closed. They will hold an epic Gaza-style wedding, and he plans on smuggling her entire family in through a tunnel. As he sits brooding in his unfinished living room, chain smoking and ingesting cups of Arabic coffee, he peers at his makeshift, sand-strewn house. The siege renders building homes near impossible due to restriction of basic materials, with even banks still having to utilise plastic sheeting after their glass doors shattered in the 2008 bombardment. Taymour’s kitchen and marble-covered entry way has cost a small fortune in themselves, meaning improving on the sand floor living room will just have to wait. A small smile covers his face as he acknowledges just how much wood the tunnels have brought into the territory; the Gazan desire to survive, love and create, as well as procreate, is placing a great market on wood for bedroom furniture. 

 

“Look at what people are having to do to survive,” Ging fumes when I return to his office. “They’re buying materials three times more expensive then they should be, six times poorer quality and all frustrations that go with that, but what did they do wrong? What did the people of Gaza do wrong? What are they convicted of? Nothing! They are imprisoned without any conviction.”

 

“At the moment we have a civilised, well-educated, tolerant, open-minded population living in Gaza,” he adds, “but we will lose a whole generation and that will impact the stability, security, and prospects for peace in the region.”

The tunnels at least provide some of the basics of life here: food, fuel, furniture, and an endless supply of humour. One hopes they will be enough to live on until genuine peacemakers return to the negotiating table.  

 

For a full version of this article, see NOX41.