Candace: Just last week I went to a screening of a local film and a talk with the photgrapher, who had been to Gaza the last couple of months, and went down in one of these tunnels to take pictures. This is very hard on the people there, and if the Christian Zionists and others in this country truly knew what was going on, I would hope there would be quite an uprising about our support of Israel. I also went to another screening of a film about life in East Jerusalem for the Palestinians' there with the filmaker present, I haven't processed my notes on that, but life there is made quite uncomfortable also.
The first photographer name is Zoriah, and he posts some material on www.zoriah.net, but I have not reviewed it yet. He appears to have more than one site. He is from the Denver area. He used to be embedded with Americans in Iraq, and got in some difficulty for posting his material to the net, so now he is a private photographer specializing in war. He plans a trip to Africa next. He was sponsered on the Gaza trip by a local TV station who supplied a large crew. Sadly the film, while OK, is more a hollywood production and fails to grasp the reality, which was the point. But Zoriah's work is impressive.
When you find independent journalists of these types, and have a few extra bucks to spare, support their work.
Analysis: Perfume, Viagra, lions and fuel - smuggling is Gaza's growth industry
Nov. 14, 2008 Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
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.
United Nations Food Aid Intended for 750,000 Palestinian Refugees in Gaza Blocked by Israel
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
Al Bureij Refuge Camp Gaza June 19 2007 Photo Fady Adwan PalestineFreeVoice Image
November 13, 2008
On Wednesday Israel pledged to allow minimum shipments of fuel and 33 truckloads of food into Gaza.On Thursday the ritualistic behavioral Israeli government changed their mind set, the pledge to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Urgent deliveries of fuel and food was turned away again at the borders.In addition the Israelis blocked the delivery of United Nations food aid intended for 750,000 Palestinian refugees. Also twenty European consuls whom had planned to visit Gaza were denied entry at the Erez border crossing. Aid workers were also turned away by the border to Gaza, and medical patients were prevented from leaving Gaza Strip for treatment.
The chief operator of the border crossings department in Gaza,said that the agency had been informed by the Israelis on Wednesday evening, that their intention is to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to permit 33 truckloads of food to cross the border.
At noon on Thursday the Israelis had a change of mind, the urgent delivery of food aid to Gaza was turned away.John Ging, the director of UN operations in Gaza,has long warned the international community of an impending "humanitarian disaster" if the Israelis embargo of food supply and other urgent shipments continues.Ging said in a Gaza press conference. "
"We cannot describe the situation in Gaza Strip except as a terrible and terrifying one.There are 750,000 refugees who depend on what we offer them in food supplies, and the Israelis are preventing us from distributing these supplies," - John Ging concluded: "the Israeli closure, collectively punishing civilians, is a violation of international law."
Trucks intended to be ship supply by UNRWA, ( the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees)are loaded with milk,sesame oil,canned and frozen meat, were denied to cross the border. UNRWA announced in the beginning of the week that its food program would be forced to shut down if the shipment of food was not delivered by Friday.
In a pledge Wednesday,to the world,Palestine Free Voice urged the International community to start serious actions on all levels, to force pressure on the Israeli government to open up the borders for shipment of food and fuel.Cease the embargo to prevent the pain and suffering caused in ill will,to spread and permeatethroughout Gaza Strip, and culminate in a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe.
Thanks to many Internet based news-media outlets and UN observers,whom noted the urgency in our pledge acting accordingly and swiftly, to bring an end to the suffering,aid to the starving Palestinians in Gaza Strip. However, the aid arrived in the twelfth hour, and it seems, Israelis attempts are evil ambitions to thwart international aid shipments to enter the Gaza Strip, the border crossings are now closed again.
