By Xinhua,
Gaza : A Palestinian contrabandist was killed on Saturday when an electric shock hit him inside a tunnel beneath Gaza border with Egypt, medics and witnesses said.
Mu’awia Hassanien, a health ministry emergency official, said the body of Asad Abu Jamel, 20, was taken to Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital in southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
The witnesses said the young man was working inside the underground tunnel when his body touched a cable of the lighting network about nine meters deep in the ground in Rafah.
More and more inexperienced jobless people go to work in smuggling goods from Egypt into the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip through hundreds of tunnels. They bring along fuel, clothes, vehicle’s spare parts and various household items.
But nowadays, as Gazans prepare to celebrate a festival in which they slaughter cattle, many of calves and sheep are smuggled through the tunnels since Israel restricts the importing of livestock through its crossing points with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
More than 40 people have died while working inside the tunnels this year, mostly due to sporadic Egyptian crackdowns in which dozens of tunnels were destroyed.