The second stage of construction of the iron wall currently being erected along Egypt’s border with the Gaza strip has begun in earnest, say eyewitnesses. The first stage included the laying of water pipes from the Mediterranean Sea to the El-Barahma district and the building of several pumping stations.
According to eyewitnesses in the area, drilling machines have been moved into the Salah Eddin border zone in the vicinity of Egypt’s cenotaph of the unknown soldier.
Human rights organizations say that flooding cross-border tunnels with sea water will adversely affect subterranean water supplies in both the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of Rafah city, which straddles the frontier between the Gaza Strip and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. "This practice will pollute the area and contaminate the soil," said Palestinian environment expert Nazar el-Wahidi.
Egyptian MP Abbas Abdel Aziz, for his part, submitted an urgent interpellation to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif demanding to know whether the wall was intended to cement Israel’s longstanding embargo of the Gaza Strip. Abdel Aziz urged the government not to destroy the tunnels, which represent the only way out of the besieged coastal enclave.
In a related development, Palestinian authorities announced that 40-year-old Salah Elwan had been killed in a tunnel collapse on Thursday.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
