Egyptian Army Kills 3 Palestinians Working Inside Rafah Tunnels

According to Palinfo website, Rescue crews pull out the bodies of three Gazan workmen from the bombed tunnel in Rafah area after they died of suffocation.
 
Five others received immediate medical assistance from paramedics and were taken to a local hospital in Rafah, according to a statement released in the morning by the Palestinian civil defense authority.
 
The victims were identified as Abdullah Annamouli, 23, Salama Abu Shusha, 24, and Obaid Assufi, 25.
 
Two weeks ago, a Palestinian workman was reported missing and several others were injured when the Egyptian army flooded one of the commercial tunnels in Rafah with seawater.
 
Commercial border tunnels have played a major role in providing Gaza with food and vital supplies since 2006 when Israeli regime has imposed tight blockade on the highly-populated coastal enclave.
 
Egypt has upheld an Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip since the ousting of former President Muhammad Morsi in 2013 and the rise to power of al-Sisi in Egypt.
 
While the Egyptian border has remained the main lifeline for Gazans to the outside world, Egyptian authorities have slowly sealed off movement through the border since Morsi was toppled by the Egyptian army.
 
The Egyptian army killed dozens of tunnel workmen underground as they were working hard to make ends meet.
 
Due to the constraints on Palestinian movement through the crossing, many Gazans are commonly barred from leaving or entering the besieged coastal enclave, some for months at a time, as the crossing is only periodically opened by Egyptian authorities, stranding Palestinians on both sides of the crossing during closures.
 
According to the United Nations, during 2016, the crossing was partially opened for only 44 days. In 2015, the crossing had only been open for 21 days.
 
The decade-long Israeli blockade has plunged the Gaza Strip’s two million Palestinians into extreme poverty and some of the highest unemployment rates in the world.
 
Gaza's infrastructure has yet to recover from the devastation of three Israeli offensives over the past six years. The slow and sometimes stagnant reconstruction of the besieged coastal enclave has only been worsened by the blockade, leading the UN to warn that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020.