Hamas plan to deal with arms-smuggling tunnels: Regulation
Wednesday, October 8, 2008 Free Headline Alerts
GAZA CITY — The Hamas regime has imposed measures to nationalize the weapons tunnel industry with regulations.
The Hamas Interior Ministry said tunnel weapons operators would be responsible for accidents or injuries of workers. The ministry said tunnel operators must provide guarantees for compensation as well as contribute to an official fund.
"The Interior Ministry has introduced precautionary measures to reduce the increasing casualties inside tunnels used to smuggle goods into the besieged Gaza Strip," the ministry said.
Officials said compensation for the death of a tunnel worker was set at more than $70,000. They said that so far Hamas has not uniformly enforced the new regulations.
The measures were instituted as Hamas has nationalized at least a dozen key tunnels that span the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Officials said the newly-operated Hamas tunnels were meant to ensure the flow of weapons and other contraband to the Islamic regime.
About 5,000 Palestinians, most of them teenagers, were said to work in the weapons tunnel industry. Officials said the ministry, which has already been taxing operators, has assessed that about 300 tunnels connect Gaza to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Construction of each tunnel was said to cost between $100,000 and $200,000.
"Under the regulations, tunnel operators must sign a commitment to compensate any worker," an official said.
Hamas has accused Egypt of pumping poison gas into the smuggling tunnels. Officials said more than 45 Palestinians were killed in Egyptian operations to track and destroy the tunnels, which span the divided city of Rafah.
The Islamic regime has been under pressure from Palestinian clans in the Rafah region to stop the Egyptian campaign. A Palestinian group said Egyptian security forces, advised by the U.S. army, destroyed 45 tunnels since June 2008.