Israeli raids on Gaza's tunnels crush the territory's fragile economy, deepen hardship

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ The Gaza Strip has lost its last lifeline after five days of Israeli bombing raids that destroyed dozens of smuggling tunnels under the sandy border with Egypt.

¶ The passages did not just supply Hamas with arms, but brought in flour, fuel and baby milk. For Gazans, already used to blackouts and shortages from an 18-month border blockade, the daily hunt for basics is ever more desperate _ though there are no reports of outright hunger.

¶ "I fed the children cooked tomatoes today, I can't find bread," Nima Burdeini, a mother of 11, said Wednesday at the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border.

¶ Israeli warplanes pounded the illicit tunnels as a part of the heavy bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza that began Saturday. The hundreds of tunnels were seen as key to keeping Hamas in power.

¶ After the Islamic militants seized Gaza by force in June 2007, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on the territory, allowing in only basic goods and humanitarian supplies.

¶ Most of Gaza's 3,900 factories have closed, unable to import raw materials or export products. Construction halted and thousands of people were thrown out of work, deepening poverty in an area where most of the 1.4 million residents rely on U.N. food aid to get by.

¶ At times, Israel tightened the closure, restricting the inflow of fuel, cash and other key supplies. The blockade caused frequent power outages and interruptions in the water supply.

¶ In the two months leading up to Israel's offensive, Israel kept Gaza tightly sealed in an attempt to force Gaza militants to stop firing rockets at southern Israeli towns.

¶ The tunnels became a lifesaver for Hamas _ and for Gaza. Some were used to sneak in arms, including rockets that militants are now firing into Israel. But most of the underground passages were used to haul in consumer goods, from motor bikes to goats, refrigerators, flour and chocolates.

¶ The tunnel area that residents once jokingly referred to as Gaza's "duty-free zone" is now a wasteland of smashed concrete and deep craters, churned up by Israeli bombs.

¶ Late Wednesday, the tunnel area was struck by 19 times within a half hour, residents said. A Gaza health official, Moawiya Hassanain, said two people were killed and 42 wounded, including at least four children.

¶ Before that report, Israeli air force officials said the bombing campaign had demolished more than 80 tunnels. Egyptian officials said the number was at least 120.

¶ Residents say there are several hundred tunnels under the 15-kilometer (9-mile) border. Owners said they believe many tunnels are badly damaged, but tunnel workers fear going near the area to check because of the attacks.

¶ The tunnels are not visible from the air, but their locations are well known _ brazen owners put up colorful tents over tunnel entrances.

¶ Economist Omar Shaban estimated some two-thirds of goods sold in Gaza came through the tunnels. From diggers, drivers and haulers, the passages employed around 12,000 Gazans, Shaban said.

¶ "It was Gaza's new economy, even if it was just importing commercial goods," Shaban said.

¶ Tunnel owner Abu Sufian said he and his colleagues lost millions of dollars in merchandise that they had paid for, but that cannot be delivered now from the Egyptian side.

¶ Shaban said destroying the tunnels would bruise, but not bloody Hamas' Gaza rule. The militant group also funds itself through local taxes and a network of businesses controlled by loyalists, he said.

¶ But demolishing the tunnels has deepened civilian suffering.

¶ Throughout Gaza, Israel's bombings have brought Gaza's dwindling economic activity to a halt. For fear of getting caught in an airstrike, wholesalers aren't distributing their goods and many shopkeepers stay home.

¶ Shelves are emptying at grocery stores. In most areas, the few shops open are those whose owners live nearby. People don't venture beyond their own streets, leaving them hostage to shortages and rising prices. Flour for baking is in short supply, and there is little cash to buy goods because banks are closed.

¶ Burdeni, 45, the mother of 11, relies on U.N. aid to feed her children, but officials halted food distribution Dec. 18, citing shortages caused by the border closure.

¶ "People are doing pretty badly. Everyone we know is sharing whatever they have, not just with their families but with their neighbors," said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps needy Palestinians.

¶ "We haven't seen widespread hunger. We do see for the very first time _ I've been here for eight years and seeing new things nowadays _ people going through the rubbish dumps looking for things, people begging, which is quite a new phenomenon as well," she said by video link to reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

¶ Chris Gunness, a U.N. spokesman, said aid distribution should resume Thursday as Israel allows humanitarian aid into Gaza. The United Nations issued a new emergency appeal Wednesday for $34 million to deal with the new crisis.

¶ Burdeni's brother gives her small amounts of cash, but the search for food is becoming tougher. Burdeni found tomatoes Wednesday, cooking them when electricity flickered on in her area. "My children ate it with spoons," she said bitterly.

¶ In Gaza City, Hiba Dahshan, 22, said the price for a 110-pound bag of flour had jumped from $30 to $100. Her family can't afford it, but the local shop still has cheese and canned meat _ their menu the past three days. She can't find vegetables on her street.

¶ Despite the shortages, some people said they are eating more than usual _ because they're pinned down at home and gripped with anxiety from the sounds of bombs exploding around them. "I'm eating like a savage," Dahshan said.

¶ Bader Tulbeh, 46, described his eight children as "locusts" with newly enlarged appetites. "They are an army," Tulbeh said while purchasing vegetables from a vendor in central Gaza City.

¶ Maher Lubad, 45, a salaried worker in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, bought lentils on credit from his cousin's grocery shop because he couldn't withdraw any money from the bank.

¶ Meanwhile, tunnel owners watch and wait.

¶ "Even as they bomb us, we are thinking of how to make new tunnels. Maybe we'll try go under the sea," said tunnel owner Abu Sufian.

¶ ___

¶ Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak reported from Gaza City and

Diaa Hadid from Jerusalem. AP writer Edith M. Lederer in New York contributed to this report.

Trapped in Gaza, residents unsure where to flee Israeli air strikes

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ In four days of Israeli airstrikes, Rasha Khaldeh has already fled twice.

¶ First she left her home, fearing Israeli warplanes would target her Hamas neighbors, only to be forced from her uncle's house when it began to sway during nearby shelling.

¶ Borders to the tiny territory are closed, and Gazans don't know where to turn for refuge.

¶ Hemmed in, Khaldeh, a secular university student, resorted to Muslim prayers and lowered the ring of her cell phone, a move to help her identify the approach of Israeli pilotless drones.

¶ The strikes have killed more than 370 people, including at least 60 civilians, according to a U.N. tally. Most bombs hit their intended target, but the damage spreads to surrounding areas.

¶ Borders with Egypt and Israel have been sealed for the most part since the militant group Hamas seized power of Gaza in June last year, confining 1.4 million residents in the coastal territory, 25 miles long and six to nine miles wide.

¶ Even those who managed to flee to Egypt during a border breach on Sunday were returned to the coastal territory.

¶ "Asylum (is) being totally denied to Gaza's population. They have to stay in this tiny, dangerous place," said Karen Abu Zayd, of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees.

¶ On the Israeli side of the border, attacks by Hamas have killed four people since the weekend, and sent many more running for bomb shelters _ some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time, as the range of the rockets grows.

¶ "It's very scary," said Yaacov Pardida, a 55-year-old resident of Ashdod, southern Israel's largest city, which was hit Monday. "I never imagined that this could happen, that they could reach us here."

¶ Israel has warned Gazans of air strikes through leaflet drops _ including one Tuesday that said the network of underground tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt, some used to smuggle weapons, would be bombed. And they have broadcast radio announcements telling residents to flee their homes if they are hiding weapons or militants.

¶ But many Gazans do not know what their neighbors are hiding, and in crowded communities missile strikes can inflict damage beyond their intended targets. So, residents are left to second-guess the Israeli military.

¶ Khaldeh, 22, fled with her family from their central Gaza Strip home late Sunday after Israel began striking the homes of Hamas militants. Her neighbors are local Hamas field leaders, and the family feared Israel would target the nearby home, putting them at risk.

¶ They sped to a relative's apartment in a Gaza City high-rise _ but were only safe for two days. Early Tuesday, Israeli aircraft pounded nearby Hamas government buildings, causing the apartment building to sway wildly. Fearing it would collapse, the family went back to their home in central Gaza.

¶ "I don't know what's safe anymore," said Khaldeh, who keeps a tiny Muslim holy book, the Quran, encased in a gold box on a necklace, hoping it will keep her safe.

¶ Some Gazans believe the key to their safety is staying in apartments next to sand dunes, which they believe will absorb blast waves from nearby explosions.

¶ While other Gazans have taken up new rituals to help ease their concerns.

¶ Anis Mansour, 22, who lives in the town of Rafah near the Egyptian border, briefly mumbles a prayer for his safe return every time he leaves his house.

¶ Omar Azayzeh, a 34-year-old medic, works extra hours hoping that by helping save others he'll shield his family from harm. His wife, meanwhile, keeps their apartment windows open in an effort to avoid glass shattering near their three young children.

¶ Azayzeh lives in a compound with his extended family about 200 feet from a Hamas-run medical center in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah. After Israel bombed the Hamas-run Islamic University in Gaza City on Sunday, Azayzeh worried the center would also become a target.

¶ His initial reaction was to send his family to his sister's house, farther away. Then he realized she lived next to another prime target _ a Hamas-run police station.

¶ Abu Zayd, the U.N. official, said the agency is preparing to turn U.N.-run schools in Gaza into shelters. Already, 200 residents slept at a U.N. school close to Gaza's border with Egypt on Sunday after Israel bombed nearby tunnels.

¶ She said the U.N. had informed Israeli officials of their locations and did not expect them to be targeted.

¶ But residents aren't so confident. "They have shelled mosques, all sorts of places. We can't distance any possibility," Azayzeh said.

¶ ___

¶

Diaa Hadid reported from Jerusalem.

Gaza militants practice tactics; Hamas rulers say truce with Israel ends Friday

By DIAA HADID and IBRAHIM BARZAK

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ Masked Palestinian gunmen practice capturing Israeli soldiers, training videos show how to make grenades and rocket squads fire daily at Israeli border towns.

¶ It looks like a warmup for battle.

¶ Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers say a six-month cease-fire with Israel formally ends Friday, and Hamas and smaller armed groups won't say clearly whether they will extend it. The vagueness, and rocket fire, could be signs of a new round of fighting, or merely a negotiating tactic to pressure Israel.

¶ Under the truce, Gaza militants were to halt rocket fire on Israeli border communities. Israel was to end raids on Gaza and allow more goods and people through its border crossings, sealed after Hamas overran the territory in June 2007.

¶ While the Egyptian-brokered truce has brought a drop in violence, neither side is entirely happy. Israel notes the rocket fire hasn't ended, while Palestinians complain the truce didn't benefit Gaza, mainly because the crossings haven't been opened, leading to widespread shortages of basic goods.

¶ "We aren't encouraged," said Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader.

¶ Hamas says the deal expires Friday, but Israel says the unwritten agreement had no expiration date.

¶ The truce has increasingly unraveled since early November, when Israeli forces entered Gaza to destroy a tunnel that could have been used in a cross-border raid. In response, Palestinian militants resumed firing rockets at Israel.

¶ At least 20 rockets were fired at Israel on Wednesday, the military said. One exploded in the border town of Sderot, wounding two people and damaging a restaurant, police said.

¶ "There can't be a situation where there is a truce, but the situation on the ground is very different," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "This demands that we address it," he added, stopping short of pledging retaliation.

¶ Israel has renewed airstrikes against rocket squads, aiming at launchers in northern Gaza on Wednesday, the military said. Palestinian hospital officials said a 47-year-old man was killed when a missile hit his house and a balcony collapsed on him.

¶ "In the end, the test is the calm and the benefit the residents have had for long months, even though it is relative calm," said Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official who helped negotiate the truce.

¶ Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said this week the deal would not be extended, while Gaza's Hamas bosses insist no decision on an extension has been made.

¶ Both sides are jockeying for better terms.

¶ Israel wants to be able to enter Gaza to prevent attacks. Hamas wants Israel to open the border crossings.

¶ Even before the truce began fraying, Israel did not allow free transfer of goods in and out of Gaza. Since the rocket fire resumed in November, Israel has kept the borders virtually sealed, allowing in only minimal humanitarian aid.

¶ Still, the lull has been a relief for people on both sides of the border. A poll Tuesday indicated that 74 percent of Palestinians and 51 percent of Israelis want to extend the cease-fire.

¶ The number of casualties and rocket attacks dropped sharply after the truce took hold.

¶ From January to June, 338 Palestinians and 16 Israelis were killed in cross-border violence, according to Associated Press figures. Since the truce took effect, 21 Palestinians, most of them militants, were killed by Israeli fire. No Israelis were killed.

¶ Israel's military says 1,786 rockets were fired in the first half of 2008, compared to around 199 in the second.

¶ During the truce, Hamas has been smuggling weapons through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Hamas militants are also believed to be burrowing tunnels into Israel to carry out attacks.

¶ Through the summer, Hamas ran military-style camps for youngsters, and the smaller Islamic Jihad has been practicing tracking down Israel soldiers. In Islamic Jihad training videos obtained by the AP, gunmen captured mock Israeli soldiers hiding in a burned out building and demonstrated how to make grenades and rockets.

¶ Israel has the region's most powerful army and would likely be able to retake Gaza quickly. However, Israeli leaders are hesitant to order a major ground offensive, because they fear high casualties on both sides.

Hamas asks Israeli reporter who came to Gaza to leave, citing security

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ An Israeli reporter who traveled by boat to Hamas-ruled Gaza last month, defying her country's blockade of the territory, returned to Israel Monday after Hamas officials told her to leave because of security concerns.

¶ Amira Hass, an award-winning writer for the Israeli daily Haaretz, crossed into Israel on Monday afternoon. She said Hamas officials did not provide details about the alleged dangers to her safety.

¶ Hass defied her country's ban on Israeli citizens entering Gaza, in place since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000. The danger to Israelis was highlighted after Palestinian militants, including those from Hamas, captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in a cross-border raid in 2006. Schalit remains in Hamas custody.

¶ Israel also maintains a blockade on Gaza, imposed after Hamas seized power there last year.

¶ Hass arrived in Gaza on Nov. 8 on a boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists who are trying to draw attention to hardship in Gaza as a result of the border closures. Israel let the boats through, but on Monday turned back a Libyan freighter that was to deliver 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

¶ Hass said she had hoped to stay in Gaza until January.

¶ Shadowy Gaza groups have kidnapped reporters in the past. However, no journalists have been kidnapped since Hamas seized power.

¶ Security officials from Hamas accompanied Hass while she was in Gaza. Hass said she did not request Hamas escorts.

¶ Hamas spokesmen were not available for comment on Monday.

¶ Hass, known for her sympathetic coverage of the Palestinians, is well known in the Gaza Strip. She wrote a book about Gaza and lived in the territory for several years. She currently lives in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

¶ Hass is the recipient of several awards for her reporting, including from the United Nations in 2003.

Citing shortages, aid groups use Gaza's rubble to build canals, roads, wastewater projects

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) _ When Palestinian militants knocked down a Gaza border wall, engineer Ashraf al-Sadoun saw an opportunity _ the rubble could be recycled to complete a Red Cross infrastructure project, a rainwater runoff ditch.

¶ Raw materials are in short supply because of the continued blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt, hurting ordinary Gazans but also international aid organizations. Israel must approve each shipment into Gaza, and aid workers say that's a painstakingly slow process.

¶ As a result, the United Nations and other development agencies have frozen several large projects, like a new waste water treatment plant for Gaza City and a housing project for thousands of Palestinians.

¶ The International Committee of the Red Cross has been trying to make do by scouring Gaza for materials it can use. It's a survival technique perfected by ordinary Gazans, who use vegetable oil for car fuel when gasoline is in tight supply and ancient kerosene stoves when natural gas runs out. Gazans dig tunnels into Egypt to haul in everything from chocolate to computers.

¶ Red Cross officials presented one of the results of their recycling this week: a concrete-lined canal through flood-prone date groves in central Gaza . The runoff ditch will help save crops and prevent farmers from getting stranded in seasonal floods, said resident Shihdeh Abu Mishal, 71.

¶ The concrete slabs, collected from southern Gaza dunes, were left there after Hamas militants knocked down the border wall with Egypt in January to protest Cairo's refusal to open its border crossing.

¶ "I thought _ I can use those blocks, instead of them being rubbish," said al-Sadoun, an engineer who works for the Red Cross.

¶ By using the slabs, Red Cross officials only had to ask Israel for 30 tons of cement, instead of 180 tons they originally required, said Red Cross official Antoine Grand.

¶ It took six months for Israel to approve the 30-ton shipment, Grand said.

¶ In rare, blunt criticism from the Swiss-based organization, Grand said the Red Cross would not have begun the project if it would have had to ask Israel for the entire amount of concrete. "It takes too long, and there's no guarantee we would get it," Grand said.

¶ Israel has allowed about 20,000 tons of cement into Gaza since the blockade began in June 2007, after Hamas violently seized power of Gaza.

¶ The territory needs around 3,000 tons a day, said U.N. official Hamada Bayari.

¶ Israeli officials say they have to scrutinize raw material shipments because they could be used by Palestinian militants to make weapons. Militants fire locally made crude rockets at Israel, and cement can be used to line tunnels that smuggle weapons into Gaza and fortify military positions.

¶ Israel also frequently closes its border with Gaza in response to Palestinian rocket fire, delaying shipments. Most recently, Israel sealed off Gaza, starting Nov. 5, to force Gaza militants to halt rocket fire.

¶ "It's illogical to expect that in a combat situation, crossings would function normally," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev. "We want to see the situation return to normal."

¶ Red Cross officials said they can't wait for Gaza's entrenched instability to end.

¶ This year, they crushed up several bombed-out Gaza houses _ destroyed by Israeli strikes in years of violence _ for gravel to harden dusty roads that flood in rains.

¶ In August, they began building a $3 million dollar waste treatment plant in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, using more abandoned border concrete. Workers have already laid down dozens of slabs to line waste pits. The project should end in February and will serve 250,000 residents. The project will filter water in native reed beds and replenish Gaza's parched aquifers.

¶ By comparison, a similar project in northern Gaza, using materials shipped from Israel, took around 18 months to build. Israeli delays and Palestinian militants firing rockets from the area staggered the project, despite lobbying by international Mideast envoy Tony Blair.

¶ Red Cross engineers say all they need from Israel is a few tons of cement to complete a pumping station to filter solid objects from the waste.

¶ But they're not the only ones to recycle. Palestinian militants have taken old cement slabs to fence their training grounds, some scrawled with Hebrew graffiti. The slabs apparently were once used as barricades by Israeli soldiers who patrolled the area before Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005. Hamas government officials also hauled slabs to reinforce the local port.

¶ Some projects are just too big to make do with recycled materials.

¶ The United Nations halted $150 million dollars of work after Israel began its blockade, because it could not ship in raw materials, including a housing project for 32,000 residents, said Bayari, the U.N. official.

¶ "The Red Cross is doing innovative work, but we are looking at large scale projects. The U.N. can't find locally sourced materials for that," Bayari said.