Global General

Egypt denies poisoning Gaza tunnel

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-04-29 23:05

CAIRO - An Egyptian official on Thursday denied allegations that Egypt spread poisoned gas into a tunnel under the borderline between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, killing five Palestinians.

The bodies of Palestinian tunnel workers Muhammad Ali Abu Jamous, aged 25, top left, Osama Abu Jamous Jamaan, aged 20, bottom left, Nadal Jeda, aged 25, bottom right, and Khaled Ramlawi, aged 20, in the morgue in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, April 28, 2010. [Agencies]

"The Egyptian security forces didn't poison the tunnels and have nothing to do with the killing of the Palestinians," a security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

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The source held the deposed government of Islamic Hamas movement responsible for the death of the Palestinians, saying "It is Hamas who killed those workers by allowing them to smuggle goods through the tunnels."

He added that the Palestinians might have been killed by the butane gas cylinders which were smuggled through the tunnel into Gaza.

"Egypt did not blow up this tunnel as it is located near a residential area," He added.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hamas held the Egyptian security forces responsible for the death of five local workers in a tunnel under the borderline between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

The Interior Ministry of Hamas government in Gaza said in a statement that the five local tunnel workers died after they inhaled poison gas spread in the tunnel by Egyptian security forces.

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip dug hundreds of tunnels under the border with Egypt to smuggle different kinds of goods from Egypt into Gaza to defy a tight Israeli blockade imposed on the enclave.

Israel has been imposing a tight blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip since Gaza militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid in June 2006.

Israel and Egypt sealed off their borders with Gaza in June 2007 when Islamic Hamas movement took over Gaza from security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to Gaza rights groups, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed over the past two years while they were working in smuggling tunnels which suddenly collapsed on their heads.