After a Brief Hiatus, Gaza Tunnels Open for Business

For eight days, the sounds of illegal commerce here at the ragged southern edge of the Gaza Strip were silenced by the pounding thrum of battle.

Israeli military jets bombed the sandy stretch of land just a center fielder’s throw from Egypt each day, hoping to collapse the underground avenues for food, cars, medicines and weapons that support Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

Ahmad al-Arja, a 22-year-old engineering student, was among the army of diggers forced to take the conflict off. But minutes after Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire on the evening of Nov. 21, his boss was on the phone.

“He said, ‘Come on, count on God, and tomorrow morning, start digging,’ ” Arja recalled, as he began with his cousins the tedious, treacherous work of tunnel repair.

The business of Rafah is the tunnel network that circumvents the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and business once again is booming.

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