Alwaght- In an unprecedented move set to please the Israeli regime, the Egyptian army has begun to pump water from the Mediterranean Sea into underground smuggling tunnels connecting Sinai with the besieged Gaza Strip.
Blockaded by the Israeli regime since 2007, Gaza used to receive much-needed supplies through the network of smuggling tunnels on its border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Egyptian security officials say the operation on Friday aimed to end smuggling into the impoverished Palestinian territory.
Palestinians in Gaza are living under inhuman conditions due to the cruel siege imposed by the Israeli regime and also partly Egypt. The tunnels to Gaza are used by Palestinians to smuggle essential goods, such as medicine, foodstuffs and construction materials.
In mid-June, the Egyptian military said Cairo had demolished nearly 1,430 underground tunnels between the country and the blockaded area over the previous 18 months.
On September 7, Palestinian officials in the Gaza Strip warned of the dangers of an Egyptian plan to flood the Egypt-Gaza border with seawater in an effort to destroy cross-border tunnel activity.
According to Mazen Al-Banna, vice-president of Gaza’s Water Authority, the move poses a “serious threat to the national security of both Egypt and Palestine because they both share the same aquifer."
Speaking at a joint press conference with officials from the Water Authority and other agencies, he said: “Egypt has begun to dig deep water reservoirs and laid pipes underground containing high-salinity seawater with a view to destroying the cross-border tunnels.”
“Pumping sea water into the reservoirs, which could leak into the aquifer, will be devastating for both sides’ economic, food and environmental security,” he said.
Such a move, the source added, “will very quickly lead to the collapse of the tunnels."
Al-Banna called on the UN and the international environmental organisations to intervene to halt the “catastrophic” project.
The World Food Program (WFP said in a report in February 2014 that the tunnels have represented “the main supply and commercial trade route for goods into Gaza” since 2007.
Dozens of people, mostly Palestinians, have lost their lives during the destruction of tunnels, which has intensified since the 2013 ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi.
Egypt's President Fattah El-Sisi headed a bloody military coup in 2013 that resulted in the ouster of the Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi.