Gaza tunnels survived despite U.S., Israeli complaints

CAIRO (Reuters) - Tunnels linking Egypt and the Gaza Strip are back in the spotlight as diplomats try to work out an agreement to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The tunnels, a lifeline for Palestinians during months under Israeli and Egyptian siege, have long been a bone of contention between the Egyptian and Israeli governments, even threatening at times good relations between Cairo and Washington.

In two weeks of air attacks on the Gaza Strip, Israel has targeted areas close to the Egyptian border to try to destroy the smuggling tunnels.

Israel, the United States and the European Union have complained repeatedly about the tunnels, saying they allow the Islamist movement to receive weapons for use against Israel.

The United States has given money and training to help the Egyptians find and destroy them and a succession of foreign delegations have visited the border area to inspect their efforts.

But a mixture of complacency, petty corruption, pro-Palestinian sentiment, official incompetence and Israeli obstinacy have combined to keep the tunnelers in business, at least so far, diplomats and analysts say.

Egyptian officials also disagree amongst themselves on the gravity and urgency of the problem.

President Hosni Mubarak said in a recent interview that Hamas received most of its weapons by sea, a route that remains under Israeli control despite its decision to withdraw ground forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a lawmaker in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's party, said last year Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into the Jewish state were unlikely to have come from Egypt.

"To the best of our knowledge, they were smuggled from the sea, not through tunnels," he told Israel's Army Radio.

"In general, we tend to greatly exaggerate the gravity of the subject of arms smuggling from Egypt," Ben-Israel said.

But other Egyptian officials, implementing a policy of trying to weaken Hamas in favor of the rival Fatah group which runs the West Bank, have said the tunnels are a problem and the government is doing its best to find a solution.

"Egypt does have a certain responsibility (for the tunnels)," Abdel Moneim Said, a senior official of the Egyptian ruling party told reporters at a briefing on Sunday.

UNDERTRAINED CONSCRIPTS

The best solution, from Egypt's point of view, would be for Israel to reopen the crossing-points between Israel and Gaza to normal traffic, making the tunnel operations less important.

Another solution would be to persuade Israel to approve an increase in the number of border guards Egypt is allowed to deploy in the area under the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

That number stands at 750 and a U.S. diplomat has said this is not enough to do the job and that the Israelis have been unnecessarily resistant to Egyptian requests for an increase.

Egypt also has large numbers of riot police in the border area but these are undertrained, poorly paid conscripts whose mission is to control protests and push back Palestinians who might try to break through, as they did in January 2008.

Smuggling has long been part of the way of life of the Bedouin of north Sinai. Before strong modern states emerged in the region they raided and imposed tolls on travelers.

The people of north Sinai also have little sympathy for the government in Cairo, especially after Egyptian police detained thousands of young Sinai men in the middle of the decade when a series of bombings shook south Sinai's tourist resorts. Most of them went free without charges after months in custody.

Smuggling generates money and money talks, analysts say. "No doubt up to a certain level the smugglers are able to pay people off," said one diplomat who asked not to be named.

One smuggler told Reuters in 2007 that some of the policemen meant to prevent the smuggling were simple people who would take 20 Egyptian pounds, worth about $4, in preference to a $100 bill, a note with which they were not familiar.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the tunnel operators have devised devious means to conceal their work. On a visit to the area last year, Reuters reporter Alaa Shahine saw tunnels ending in bedrooms, barns and open land.

Pro-Palestinian sympathies are widespread in north Sinai, where some Palestinian refugees have settled and where some families have ties with the Bedouin of the Negev desert, now part of southern Israel.

(Writing by Jonathan Wright; Editing by Dominic Evans)