GAZA CITY: A Palestinian tunnel worker was killed when one of the smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian-Gaza borderline collapsed on Thursday morning, witnesses and medical sources said.
Mouawiya Hassnin, a Health Ministry official told reporters that the body of a 44-year-old Salah Alwan arrived at Al-Najar Hospital in Rafah city south of the Gaza Strip after he suffocated inside the collapsed tunnel in Al-Salam neighborhood east of Rafah.
Witnesses said that the tunnel collapsed as a result of constructing a metal wall on the Gaza-Egypt borderline. Two weeks ago, Egypt has begun constructing a huge steel wall along its border with Gaza Strip in attempt to cut the smuggling tunnels.
Earlier on Monday, hundreds of Hamas supports gathered near the Salah Al-Deen gate on the Palestinian side of Gaza's border with Egypt, protesting the building of the steel wall. The protesters chanted slogans calling for a lift to an Israeli blockade imposed more than two years ago and urged Egypt to stop building the steel wall.
