Hamas Digging New Smuggling Tunnels

(CBS)  Along the border where Gaza meets Egypt, the clearing up operation is in full swing. But the men aren't re-building their homes. They're getting back to business: the tunnel building business, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports.

One of the prime objectives of the Israeli assault on Gaza was to destroy the tunnel system Hamas used to smuggle in weapons.

Israeli warplanes dropped more than 100 tons of explosives along a mile-long section called Salahadin's Gate. That's its official name. But everyone knows it as "the city of tunnels."

The ground underneath where Pizzey stood to report is honeycombed with them. The Israelis claim to have destroyed as many as 300, but no one knows how many there really are.

And new ones are being dug.

One group of men estimated it will take them from two to four months to burrow the 500 or so yards to the other side of the Egyptian border.

Any chance of the ceasefire lasting depends on Egypt stopping Hamas from smuggling in weapons.

Because of an Israeli blockade, the tunnels are Gaza's economic lifeline too.

"Hamas have their own tunnels," stall owner Mohammed Athem says through a translator. "Most of the others belong to merchants who bring in things for the people."

And at the end of each commercial tunnel is an Egyptian businessman who splits the profits from food to clothing to household goods and electronics.

It's a desperate economy and high profits coupled with Hamas stated determination to re-arm means that tunneling will remain big business - even at the risk of more air strikes.

[jsmithcsa]

Odd how those scumbags can find a way to bring in rockets and rocket parts but can''t find a way to bring in medicine for their sick kids.

[redneck4reas]

The fools blame Israel for blocking food and other necessities to survive. That''s their excuse to fire rockets at Israel all the time. I got a novel idea, why don''t you(Hamas & Palestinians) "smuggle" in food and necessities instead of weapons and rockets. Problems solved.

That would be too easy and where''s the fun in that.

[iseetruth1]

Our AIPAC NeoCon spy bribed and blackmailed government has given Israel $200 billion stolen from hard-working US taxpayers to fund 60 years of the Israeli Terror State:

1) running people out of their homes and villages

2) stealing their property

3) walling them into refugee concentration camps

4) harassing them at hundreds of checkpoints so they can''t even go to the bathroom without Israel''s permission

5) diverting their drinking water so illegal jewish settlers can have lush green lawns in the desert

6) blockading their food fuel and medicine so their
children eat like kids in sub-sahara africa

7) labeling them %u2018terrorists%u2019 if they resist

8) bombing them

9) murdering their children

10) and then blaming them for all the bad things that have happened to them

Makes people all over the world hate us. While bankrupting us. And how is that good for the USA?

[iseetruth1]

"1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day."

"(during the cease-fire) rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. "

Israel is starving the people - blockading food fuel and medicine.

That''s why hamas fired rockets. And that''s why they did tunnels. Do you expect them to sit around and let Israel starve their children to death???

[l00ker1]

Indeed, and big enough to drive tanks and Al-Samouds through into Gaza even.

[whatnow12]

I really wish people would quit lumping the Palestinian People with Hamas. How can you opverlook the fact that MOST of the tunnels to Egypt are from merchant to merchant? Between the Palestinian government, Hamas and Israel, the poor people of Gaza were getting no supplies (fresh food and water). What were they supposed to do? What would you do if your life and that of your family depended on a tunnel to Egypt?
How do you feel about the American public being hated for what Bush and his cronies have done? Should we starve because of war criminals? Oh, I forgot - we will starve.... they ruined our economy with all this terrorist b*s*.

[indamiddle]

the ink on the cease fire is not dry yet and the hamas are already breaking it...

[libbssuck]

Israel already knows this, so where is the news?

[jsd330]

It''s israels own fault they didn''t finish the job. They thought they could do it with bombs, tanks and artillery. Didn''t work, they should have sent their troops in and dug the rats out of their holes. Lesson learned in viet nam.

[anny12-2009]

I just watched this story on the news,
something caught my attention,
you used the Saudi Arabian flag for GAZA and HAMAS.
you should be more accurate about these things.