RAFAH: Dozens of Egyptian butchers were invited to an auction on Monday of 560 sheep seized on their way to Gaza through smuggling tunnels, a security official said.
The sheep, captured last week, will be auctioned near the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip, the only one to bypass Israel, the official said. Around 50 gas canisters intercepted on their way to Gaza will also be auctioned off.
Egyptian authorities, criticized by Israel for not doing enough to stem smuggling into the impoverished Gaza Strip, have also seized 500 kilos of explosives and four tons of cement on their way to Gaza, the official added.
Despite Egypt occasionally opening the crossing for the sick and students to cross, Rafah has been largely closed since June 2006, when Hamas fighters captured an Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid.
Since then, Israel has tightened its blockade on the enclave where most of the 1.4 million inhabitants survive on foreign aid, particularly since Hamas seized control in June 2007.
Egypt also opens the Rafah crossing periodically to allow humanitarian assistance to enter Gaza, where more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in a three-week Israeli onslaught in December and January.
Due to the blockade, tunnels beneath the 14 km border have become a mainstay of the local economy.
Israel accuses the Islamist Hamas movement of using the tunnels to bring in advanced weapons supplied by Iran, but smugglers say with the exception of a few secret Hamas-run tunnels the passages are used only for food and basic goods.
Israeli warplanes frequently pound the Gaza side of the Rafah border in a bid to destroy the tunnels. -AFP
