Cairo (Earth Times) - Egypt has almost finished building an underground steel wall along its border with the Gaza Strip to curtail smuggling through tunnels, a leading Egyptian newspaper reported Tuesday. The barrier is "near completion" and is "in its final stages of construction," eyewitnesses told Cairo's al-Masry al-Youm daily.
They said there had been heightened construction activity in recent weeks, with as many as 45 shipments of steel arriving in the past two days alone.
Egypt has never explicitly confirmed it is building such a barrier, but President Hosny Mubarak last week defended "increased fortifications" along the border as a matter of "national sovereignty" that were "not up for debate."
His remarks were a response to rising domestic and regional criticism of Egypt and Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip since Hamas took control of the territory's security forces in 2007.
Smugglers have used cross-border tunnels to bring basic commodities, drugs and weapons into the Gaza Strip since the imposition of the blockade.
Egyptian security forces on Monday said they had discovered five tunnels which had been used to smuggle car and motorcycle parts, as well as paint, into the Gaza Strip.
Smugglers have dismissed the reported barrier as ineffective, saying they will simply tunnel deeper, and that many of the tunnels are, in any case, already deeper than the new wall's reported depth of 20 meters.
They said there had been heightened construction activity in recent weeks, with as many as 45 shipments of steel arriving in the past two days alone.
Egypt has never explicitly confirmed it is building such a barrier, but President Hosny Mubarak last week defended "increased fortifications" along the border as a matter of "national sovereignty" that were "not up for debate."
His remarks were a response to rising domestic and regional criticism of Egypt and Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip since Hamas took control of the territory's security forces in 2007.
Smugglers have used cross-border tunnels to bring basic commodities, drugs and weapons into the Gaza Strip since the imposition of the blockade.
Egyptian security forces on Monday said they had discovered five tunnels which had been used to smuggle car and motorcycle parts, as well as paint, into the Gaza Strip.
Smugglers have dismissed the reported barrier as ineffective, saying they will simply tunnel deeper, and that many of the tunnels are, in any case, already deeper than the new wall's reported depth of 20 meters.
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