GAZA CITY: Hamas said on Sunday it was investigating the deaths of four Palestinians in a smuggling tunnel between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, allegedly by poison gas pumped in from the Egyptian side.
A statement from the Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza said it has set up a committee to probe last week’s death and called on Egypt to launch its own investigation, pledging to cooperate with Cairo authorities.
Palestinian medics working for the Hamas-run health ministry said after last Wednesday’s incident that the four had died from suffocation and that there was evidence of poisonous gas.
Egypt has denied Hamas accusations that it pumped gas into the tunnel.
Gaza’s 1.5 million people have largely relied on a network of hundreds of tunnels beneath the border with Egypt since Israel and Egypt tightened an already strict closure of the territory after Hamas seized power in June 2007.
Most of the tunnels are used to bring in basic goods like food, household appliances and livestock but Hamas and other militant groups use their own more secretive tunnels to bring in arms and money.
Egypt is building an underground wall in a bid to curb smuggling, which it views as a security problem.
Following last week’s reported fatalities Egyptian security officials said their forces had destroyed four smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border but were not aware of any casualties.
More than 120 Palestinians have died in cave-ins or been killed by Israeli military operations aimed at the tunnels since the Hamas takeover.
