Four Palestinians were killed on Sunday when a tunnel used for smuggling between the Gaza Strip and Egypt collapsed on top of them, medics said. The victims were between the ages of 17 and 25, they said. The tunnels were thought to have collapsed after torrential downpours that hit the region over the last several days.
Smuggling tunnels have mushroomed along the Gaza-Egypt border since June 2006, when Gaza militants seized an Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid. Since then, the enclave's border crossings with Israel have remained largely closed, as has the one at Rafah with Egypt - the only one that bypasses the Jewish state.