ALEXANDRIA: Medical crews along the Egypt-Gaza border have uncovered three additional bodies of Palestinians missing after a reported explosion destroyed a smuggling tunnel on Sunday. The uncovered bodies puts the death toll from Sunday's incident to four in the most recent incident that has killed Palestinians along the border. Gaza emergency services chief Mo'aweya Hassanein, told reporters that rescue crews were still searching for three missing Palestinians after an explosion destroyed a tunnel linking the Egyptian and Gazan sides of the divided town of Rafah. The death toll could rise, he added. “Paramedics and civil-defense officers have pulled out three additional bodies,” Hassanein said. “They are still looking for three others.” Initially, Bikya Masr reported that one Palestinian was killed and four others wounded after an explosion in one of the smuggling tunnels that run along the Egyptian-Gazan border caused the tunnel to collapse. Medical workers and witnesses said the tunnel broke after some sort of explosion occurred, killing at least one person. Emergency crews said that four workers on the tunnels were missing after the blast. Some witnesses on the Palestinian side of Rafah, which is bisected by the border, said Egyptian security forces blew up several tunnels that Palestinians use to smuggle goods into the Gaza Strip, causing the tunnel the Palestinian was in to collapse. Other witnesses said that a fuel leak had caused the explosion. Neither story could be verified as of Sunday evening. The explosion came a day after Hamas reported that near Rafah they had observed an unusual amount of activity on the Egyptian side of the border by security personnel. Egypt has been under consistent international pressure, particularly from the United States and Israel, to stop smuggling across its border with the Gaza Strip since the territory was blockaded after Hamas took power there in 2007. Dozens of workers and smugglers, including children, have been killed in accidents in the tunnels.
