Egyptians live in fear along Gaza border
Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009 5:16 PM
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On Assignment
By Alphonso Van Marsh for NBC News
SALAH EL DIN, Egypt – Beneath Egypt’s border with Gaza lay dozens of tunnels Israel says are used to smuggle weapons and ammunition to Hamas militants. In recent days, Israeli fighter jets and unmanned drone planes have bombed the southern Gaza border city Rafah in an effort to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israel.
But for residents living along the Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border, there is growing fear and anger over Israeli military operations that injured four Egyptians over the weekend, according to news reports.
"My grandchildren wake up in the middle of the night, crying as the bombs go off, shaking the very foundation of our house. They haven’t really slept for five days," said Om Fayez, the short, feisty matriarch of a five-story family home in Salah el Din, a few hundred feet from the border. "Our windows have been shattered [by the bombings]. We are scared we’ll be hurt."
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| NBC News |
| Rhasmeya el Nahal shows NBC News' Alphonso Van Marsh her families’ orange groves leading to Egypt’s border and the high-rise buildings of Gaza. |
Fayez has reason to fear. Shrapnel hit and injured two Egyptian children and two Egyptian police officers on Sunday, according to a Reuters report, when an Israeli Air Force bomb exploded in Gaza. The injured were on the Egyptian side of the border at the time and were taken to a local hospital. The gravity of their injuries is unknown. Egyptian police sources told Reuters an Israeli bomb landed on Egyptian soil on Monday – but failed to explode.
"[Israel] says it is going after the tunnels," said Fayez’s daughter Rhasmeya el Nahal, pointing toward an Israeli drone circling over Gaza. "But what about [those people] who have nothing to do with them?"
Cracking down on tunnels
El Nahal said that most of the tunnels are used to smuggle goods to Palestinians because they are trapped due to Israel’s land, air and sea blockade around Gaza. She wouldn’t discuss weapons, but el Nahal insisted smugglers use the tunnels to make money. Some people are engineers, other run shops, the smugglers are doing a job just like any other, she told me. "They’re simply digging for cash."
Egypt has been cracking down on tunnel use. Local Bedouins told us that Egyptian authorities recently instructed them not to take journalists to tunnel entrances. El Nahal said Egyptian authorities have held her husband without charge for three months after a neighbor accused him of having a tunnel on their property. From the rooftop overlooking orange groves, another el Nahal family member said he challenged Egyptian authorities to inspect the family property for what Egyptian authorities suspect lays beneath.
El Nahal said police have yet to visit, and her husband – a civilian administrator at local police headquarters – remains in detention. At the time of writing, NBC News could not independently verify her claims that the expansive family property was indeed tunnel free.
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| Alphonso Van Marsh/ NBC News |
| The Israeli military has distributed Arabic-language fliers like this one warning residents that “Hamas is feeling the wrath of the Israel Defense Forces” – and providing a number to phone in tunnel locations Israel says are used to smuggle weapons to Palestinians. |
Meantime, trying to calm frayed nerves In the meantime, Fayez and el Nahal said they are concentrating on putting the family’s youngest – including four girls under age 10 – at ease, despite the bombardment. It is not easy, they said.
El Nahal handed me a paper flier the Israel Defense Forces dumped over Gaza that she says blew over the border. In Arabic, the flier warned that the Israeli military will continue military attacks until it reaches its objective. "Hamas started to feel the wrath of the Israel Defense Forces…for your safety, we beg you to leave your residential areas and go to city centers," it said. New fliers dumped Sunday offer a number for residents to call if they know the whereabouts of tunnel locations.
Last week, an Israeli spokeswoman said Israeli forces had destroyed 50 percent of the tunnels. Israel insists any proposal to end the conflict must include Egyptian efforts to shut down the complex tunnel system.
Egyptian Bedouins say the tunnels can be reconstructed or replaced in a matter of weeks. But Fayez and el Nahal say replacing the fear their girls are experiencing now with a normal child’s carefree existence will take a whole lot longer.
