Asia

Home page

Asia

Gas balloon blast kills Palestinian in Gaza smuggling tunnel

24 September 2011 19:56 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. One local worker was killed and seven others wounded when a gas balloon exploded Saturday in a smuggling tunnel beneath the borders between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, APA reports quoting Xinhua

Bassam Abu Ziada, in his early 20s working in a tunnel used for smuggling gas balloons from Egypt into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, died in the hospital shortly after he was seriously wounded in the blast.

Seven other workers were moderately wounded, said the medics at Rafah town hospital.

After Israel imposed a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip when Hamas seized control of the enclave by force in June 2007, the Palestinians dug hundreds of tunnels under the borders with Egypt to defy the blockade.

According to local Gaza-based right groups, around 160 Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded, most of them were killed in tunnel cave-in or electrical shocks.

The tunnel business in the Gaza Strip declined as Israel relaxed the blockade last year following severe international criticism over deadly raids on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, during which nine activists were killed.