A third of the houses on the main street of this Bedouin town near Egypt's border with Gaza look derelict, but inside they buzz with the activity of tunnel smugglers scrambling to survive a security crackdown by the Egyptian army. Smugglers and tunnel owners, who once publicly advertised their services, have taken over the nearly two dozen single-storey concrete structures and boarded up their doors and windows to avoid the attention of the authorities.
While tunnels used by Gaza's dominant Hamas militants to infiltrate Israel were a priority target of an Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave this summer, many smuggling conduits into Egypt have skirted detection. That has allowed transports of weapons, building materials, medicine and food to continue to and from the small, coastal territory that is subject to blockade by both Israel and Egypt, tunnel operators say and Egyptian security sources acknowledge.
"During the Gaza war, business has flourished," said a Bedouin guide who gave Reuters access to one of the tunnels and a rare look at how the illicit, lucrative industry has evolved since Egypt began trying to root out the passages in 2012. Egypt sees a halt to the flow of weapons and fighters as important to its security, shaken in the past year by explosions and shootings by an Islamist insurgency based mainly in the Sinai Peninsula bordering Gaza and Israel.
Humanitarian supplies and building materials headed in the other direction have provided a vital lifeline to the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been living under the Israeli-imposed blockade since Hamas seized the enclave in 2007. Cairo mediated talks this month between Israel and Palestinian factions led by Hamas to try to end the war in Gaza but refused to discuss easing its tight control of the Rafah border crossing as part of the deal Hamas seeks.
A 10-day ceasefire expired on Tuesday without a deal to extend it indefinitely, with Israel resuming air strikes on Gaza and Hamas and other Islamist militants their rocket salvoes into the Jewish state. The guide who accompanied Reuters and requested anonymity estimated the total number of functional tunnels in about 10 border villages like Al-Sarsouriya at nearly 500 - down from about 1,500 before the Egyptian clampdown began. Most of the bigger tunnels - the kind that can accommodate cars and even trucks - have been destroyed by the Egyptians, but smaller ones ranging 1-2 meters (yards) in diameter survive.
The guide said that as many as 200 new tunnels had been built in the past two years, dodging Egyptian security sweeps, with new ones coming onboard each week. The smaller tunnels are still big enough to allow weapons, building materials and humanitarian supplies to pass under the heavily guarded land crossing. "Each day, about 3 or 4 people cross with weapons, and each one carries about 6 or 7 guns," the Bedouin guide said, without specifying what type of arms were being transported.
A senior Egyptian security officer confirmed that while the biggest and longest tunnels were no more, smaller ones remain operational. "The situation is much more controlled. It's not 100 percent but we are trying to reach this percentage," he told Reuters. He said the army had achieved a noticeable reduction in smuggling of weapons, fuel, food and drugs over the past two years.
Egypt accuses the Islamist Hamas of supporting the Sinai insurgents, which Hamas denies. For its part, Israel has long wanted Egypt to end arms smuggling from Sinai to Gaza militants. A shower curtain is all that conceals the entrance ramp to the tunnel which Reuters visited. Two sheep and a cart in an adjacent room gave the impression that the house was abandoned, should security forces come searching.