Israeli fighter jets launch new airstrikes on Gaza Strip while another a Palestinian youth is shot dead by Israeli troops during clashes.

Press TV

Israeli jets launch new raids on Gaza Strip

Mon Oct 5, 2015 12:2AM

A Palestinian man looks at the damage following an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas police facility in Gaza City on September 30, 2015. (AFP)

Israeli fighter jets have launched airstrikes on an area in the central Gaza Strip while another Palestinian is shot to death by Israeli troops.
The early Monday attacks, which hit two sites belonging to the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, were carried out after rockets were allegedly fired from the enclave towards an uninhabited area in southern Israel.
There has been no word on the possible casualties and damage inflicted by those strikes.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian youth during clashes in the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

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Underground lifelines used by residents of the town of Rafah are being flooded by Egypt, worsening existing isolation.

TRT World - World in Focus: Egypt to Flood Gaza Tunnels

TRT World

Published on Sep 10, 2015

POPULATION UNDER SIEGE

The Gaza Strip one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Around 1.8 million people call this coastal strip of just 360 square kilometres, home. And eight years of blockades and wars have crippled its economy. 43 percent of Gazans are unemployed, and 39 percent live in poverty. They’re still rebuilding after last year’s war with Israel and depend on international aid to survive. Much has been pledged, but Israel only allows a portion of the essentials to pass through.

TUNNELS OF LIFE
Tunnels that run beneath the Egyptian border provide a vital lifeline for many struggling families in Gaza. Smugglers often risk their lives to use the tunnels - as Egypt has restricted access to the Rafah crossing since its military deposed former president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. So far this year, the crossing’s only been open for 15 days. Egypt also begun to demolish the tunnels in Sinai - over 1,400 of them since the beginning of 2014. And now, it seeks to flush out the smugglers once and for all by flooding the tunnels.
EGYPTIAN FISH FARMS
Egypt says it wants to use its 14-kilometre border with Gaza for a different purpose - to build fish farms. And Egypt’s military has already begun to dig along border to set up 18 fisheries. But Gazans fear the project is just a ploy to reinforce the blockade. Hamas official Mushir al Masri said it was to tighten the siege on Gaza. Egypt previously cleared homes along the border to expand a buffer zone and its military regime has accused Hamas of supporting militant groups in the Sinai peninsula. But Hamas, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood now outlawed by Egypt, has denied the claims.
STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE
But because of the fisheries, prices of supplies smuggled into Gaza have skyrocketed.
Smugglers are now installing water pumps into tunnels to ease the flooding. Currently, it’s believed that only 20 tunnels are still actively being used. The mayor of Rafah, Subhi Radwan, has warned that the flooding of the tunnels could cause homes on the Gazan side of the border to collapse. He also said that filling them with sea water could contaminate Gaza’s drinking water. But for now, Gazans have little choice but to watch on from behind the borders.

Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels

Freaking Crazy

Published on Sep 20, 2015

People rarely came this far, she told us, and it seemed to her that very few of those that did, cared enough to ask how they were doing.

"Not well at all," she said needing little prodding. "Not well at all."
Mansura was clearly exhausted from having stayed up the night before.
Fearful for her family, she sat outside her makeshift house just a few hundred metres from the border between Gaza and Egypt, on guard until dawn.
"We're used to the guns and the rockets and the explosions," she said. "But now - water?"
Witness: The Gaza tunnels
Her voice trembled, and tears began to pool in her eyes.
"This is our life," she said hopelessly.
"We are so, so tired."
Mansura lives in Rafah, the town divided between Gaza and Egypt by international

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Al JAZEERA

Strangled: Gaza after Egypt floods tunnels

 

20 Sep 2015 09:29 GMT

 

Marga Ortigas

Marga Ortigas covers the Asia-Pacific region for Al Jazeera English.

Seventy-three year old Mansura Abu Shaar was more than happy to talk to strangers.
People rarely came this far, she told us, and it seemed to her that very few of those that did, cared enough to ask how they were doing.
"Not well at all," she said needing little prodding. "Not well at all."
Mansura was clearly exhausted from having stayed up the night before.
Fearful for her family, she sat outside her makeshift house just a few hundred metres from the border between Gaza and Egypt, on guard until dawn.
"We're used to the guns and the rockets and the explosions," she said. "But now - water?" Her voice trembled, and tears began to pool in her eyes.
"This is our life," she said hopelessly.
"We are so, so tired."
Mansura lives in Rafah, the town divided between Gaza and Egypt by international political agreements in the 1980s.
With Israel the only other way in or out, Gazans saw the border with fellow-Arab Egypt as the "friendly" alternative.
It was a pressure valve when all else around them seemed to be closing in.
But the "friendly border" closed when Hamas took control of the government in Gaza in 2007.
At least in theory......

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Al JAZEERA

'Rafah has turned into a ghost town'

As Egypt works to create a buffer zone, the destruction of tunnels has further crippled Gaza's already besieged economy.

Walaa Ghussein | 18 Nov 2014 09:04 GMT

 

Egyptian authorities have ordered residents living along the border with Gaza to evacuate their homes [Al Jazeera]

Rafah, Gaza - Ahmed al-Afifi cannot focus on studying as midterm exams approach. For the past two weeks, the constant sounds of explosions have echoed from across the border.
"We are not psychologically ready for this," said al-Afifi, 22, a Gaza-based university student who lives in the Palestinian side of Rafah, which shares a border with Egypt's restive Sinai peninsula. His home is about 400m from the border, and the explosions are part of an Egyptian military operation to initially create a 500m-deep buffer zone.
But on Tuesday November 18, Egyptian authorities said they were to expand the buffer zone to one km.
The army is clearing the area by using dynamite and bulldozers, a systematic campaign also aimed at destroying smuggling tunnels into Gaza. The operation followed the killing of 33 Egyptian soldiers in an attack in North Sinai in October. Egyptian authorities have ordered residents living along the country's eastern border with Gaza to evacuate their homes, which are targeted for demolition.
On Monday November 17, Rober Turner, head of UNRAWA operations in Gaza, said that the buffer zone set up by Egyptian authorities will make things more difficult . He described the siege as 'unjust'.

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Egypt floods people-smuggling tunnels leading from Sinai to the Gaza Strip in a renewed effort to stamp out terror activity

• Authorities feared the tunnels would allow Islamist militants to smuggle people and weapons across the border in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip
• Military pumped water from the Mediterranean Sea into the tunnel pipes, which are now to be converted into fish farms
• Hamas previously infiltrated Israel via smuggling tunnels, killing 12 soldiers and destroying 32 underground passages 

By Sophie Mogridge For Mailonline

Published: 18:49 EST, 19 September 2015 | Updated: 20:49 EST, 19 September 2015 

Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border in Rafah on Friday in a reported attempt to stamp out terror activity. 

Authorities feared the tunnels, which lead from Sinai to the Gaza Strip, would allow for smuggling by Islamist militants between the blockaded Palestinian enclave, according to a report by DPA.

The military pumped water from the Mediterranean Sea into the pipes of the underground cross-border tunnels in an effort to curb the use of the passages in their entirety. 

A Palestinian youth shows how to abseil into one of the tunnels on the Gaza side after Egyptian forces flooded smuggling tunnels beneath the border to the Gaza strip, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip

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Gaza militants say truce restored despite reports to the contrary

Gaza militants say truce restored

by Staff Writers
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories (AFP) March 13, 2014

Gaza's Islamic Jihad announced Thursday that an Egyptian-brokered truce had been restored following a brief but intense confrontation a day earlier when Israeli warplanes pounded the Strip after heavy cross-border rocket fire.
But the truce, which was to have taken effect at 1200 GMT, was being tested after the Israeli military reported further rocket fire from Gaza hours later.
An army spokesman told AFP four rockets hit Israeli soil during the evening and another two were intercepted midair by the Iron Dome missile defence system.
Three rockets had also struck during the morning, he said.
On Wednesday at least 60 rockets hit Israel.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the Thursday rocket fire, but Gaza security sources linked what appeared to be a failed rocket attempt Thursday night to a Salafist splinter group.
They said the group may have been behind the explosion of a locally made projectile in the northern town of Beit Hanoun that injured five members of the same family, including a woman and two children.
Over the course of 24 hours, Israeli warplanes struck Gaza after militants fired scores of rockets over the border in the worst confrontation since an eight-day conflict in November 2012 between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas which rules Gaza.
Although there were no casualties on either side, the violence was denounced by both Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and British Prime Minister David Cameron at a news conference in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton added her voice.
"I strongly condemn the recent rocket attacks on Israel, for which the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is listed by the EU as a terrorist organisation, has claimed responsibility," she said in a statement
"There can be absolutely no justification for the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians, and I call for an immediate end to such acts."
Behind the scenes, Egypt worked to secure the renewal of a truce agreement to scale back the hostilities, officials in Gaza said.
"An Egyptian-brokered truce went into effect at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT)," Islamic Jihad spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP.


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AL Jazeera

Attacks continue despite Gaza truce claims

Israeli air raids on camps of Palestinian armed groups follow new barrage of rockets fired from Hamas-ruled territory.

Last updated: 14 Mar 2014 03:38

 Israel has targeted suspected camps of Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip following a barrage of rockets fired from the territory.
Thursday was the second straight day of rocket attacks and air raids after an Israeli military operation against members of Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad said that an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire had been restored, but the truce, which was to have taken effect at 1200 GMT, was being tested by continued violence.
"Israel Air Force aircraft targeted four terror sites in the southern Gaza Strip and three additional terror sites in the northern Gaza Strip," a military statement released around Thursday midnight (2200 GMT) said.
Al Jazeera's Safwat al-Kahlout quoted Gaza-based medics as saying that three people were injured, one of them seriously, in the Israeli bombardment.
Behind the scenes, Egypt worked to scale back the hostilities, officials in Gaza said.
"An Egyptian-brokered truce went into effect at 2pm (1200 GMT)," Daud Shihab, Islamic Jihad spokesman, told AFP news agency.
Earlier, Khaled al-Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader, said Egyptian officials had contacted Hamas, which governs Gaza, to "restore the truce" with Israel in force since November 2012.
However, an Israeli defence official said he was "not familiar" with any ceasefire arrangement.
Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington DC, said the Israeli government was not commenting on the ceasefire.


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Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are reeling from another devastating blockade but this time the blame falls to Egypt

Hamas Reeling from Egyptian Crackdown on Gaza Tunnels

A Palestinian tunnel worker uses his mobile as he rests inside a smuggling tunnel beneath the Gaza-Egypt border in the southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2013.

Reuters

July 21, 2013

GAZA — Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are reeling from another devastating blockade but this time they are blaming Egypt, the neighboring Arab power they once hoped would end their isolation, rather than their old foe Israel.
In a few weeks of digging, dynamiting and drenching, Cairo's troops have destroyed many of the smuggling tunnels that ran under the Egypt-Gaza border and which had provided the cramped coastal enclave with commercial goods as well as weaponry.
The Islamist Hamas government, which taxes much of the traffic through the underground passages, has been hit hard by the losses. Ordinary Palestinians, many of them dependent on U.N. aid handouts, have seen prices for staple goods skyrocket.
"There is a difficult humanitarian situation in Gaza because of the Egyptian measures on the borders," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "Most of the tunnels were demolished and the few that remain open are paralyzed."
He likened the crisis to 2007, when Israel, responding to the Hamas takeover of Gaza in a brief civil war with Western-backed Palestinian rivals, clamped down on the territory.
Israel still maintains a strict control of all imports into Gaza to prevent arms reaching Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state and has often clashed with it. Under international accords, merchandise cannot be imported via Egypt.
Cairo mobilized against the tunnels after jihadi militants in the Egyptian Sinai desert killed 16 of its soldiers a year ago. Egypt said some of the gunmen had slipped into Sinai from nearby Gaza, an accusation denied by Hamas.
The tunnel crackdown has gathered pace since the Egyptian military removed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi from power this month. Morsi's short-lived rule had already disappointed Hamas, since despite their shared ideology he appeared in no rush to open the Gaza border.



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