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*Palestinians venture into death tunnels to flee Gaza hellfire * RAFAH, Egypt, Jan. 9 KYODO Palestinians living in the coastal enclave of the Gaza Strip are using the tunnels criss-crossing the Egypt-Gaza border to escape from the two-week-old Israeli air-and-ground offensive, taking the risk of suffocating inside the tunnels or being killed in an Israeli aerial bombardment. Israel launched its offensive on Dec. 27 to pull the plug on rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and prevent Hamas from rearming with weapons smuggled through these underground passages. The onslaught has so far claimed the lives of more than 760 Palestinians, of whom more than half were civilians, and injured some 3,200 others, according to Hamas officials. Abu Mohamed, 47, a Palestinian from Gaza City's densely populated refugee camp of Bureij, said it took more than two hours for him to crawl to safety in a 1,500-meter-long, 40-centimeter-high tunnel until he reached the Egyptian city of Rafah. ''It was like being a man who rose from the dead,'' he told Kyodo News. ''I was visiting my sister in Rafah when I saw a group of five young Palestinians planning to escape through one of the tunnels running under the Egypt-Gaza border, and then I was struck by the thought that I should follow suit. Unaware of the consequences, I grabbed the rope and made my way down the 25-meter-deep hole,'' he said. Giving an account of his first-time tunnel experience, Abu Mohamed said he had to crawl for more than two hours in a bleak, dark and poorly ventilated tunnel until his knees and elbows got severely bruised and swollen. ''Nearly halfway through, I was completely wiped out, but I could not turn back. I had to choose between facing death in the tunnel and continuing on my way, and therefore I decided to go forward. My leg was bleeding and I was absolutely parched. It was too dark and I was unable to breathe. I could hardly feel my arms. It was like a grave, as I was on the verge of death,'' he said. Tunnels have become the main source of commodities for Gazans and one of the territory's lifelines since Hamas wrested control of the coastal enclave from its rival Fatah in a June 2007 military coup and a subsequent crippling blockade imposed by Israel on the Islamic group. The owners of tunnels, running under the Philadelphi buffer zone between the Egyptian city of Rafah and the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah, are smuggling wheat, dairy products, beef, cattle, electric appliances and weapons, such as machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades into Gaza. They are also smuggling people in and out of Gaza for about $1,000 per person, according to a source familiar with tunnel operators. But Abu Mohamed said he had paid no money to sneak into Egypt as the people in charge of the tunnels have deserted their positions for fear of the bombardment. Abu Mohamed, who lived in Tel Aviv for 25 years during which he was arrested four or five times on charges related to work permits and illegal stays, said he had no choice but to leave Gaza, leaving behind his wife and five children because he did not want to watch them being killed. ''The last time I heard from them was three days ago and since then communications have been cut due to the continuous bombardment. The people are so welcome here, as they sympathize with me,'' he said. Describing the situation in Gaza as tragic, Abu Mohamed said life is so painful in Gaza that the people have forgotten how to smile. ''Words cannot describe the gruesome scenes of killings, poverty and death from hunger and thirst. There is no bread and water. There is nothing but explosions and scenes of dead children and women. The people in Gaza are helpless as they cannot save their children who are dying in front of them,'' Abu Mohamed said. He said that since coming to Egypt he has been moving from house to house so as not to be arrested and sent back to Gaza. Abu Mohamed, whose 30-year-old cousin's son recently died in a Saudi hospital after first being transferred, among other Palestinian wounded, to an el-Arish hospital in Egypt, accused Israel of indiscriminately targeting civilians and held it responsible for the collapse of a six-month truce with Hamas brokered by Egypt. ''They have never kept a promise or abided by a truce. They should have respected Egypt with whom they made peace 30 years ago. They have even besieged the late President Yasser Arafat in his presidential complex in Ramallah despite the agreement they have signed with him,'' he said, referring to the Oslo peace agreement mediated by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. ''We have been living in a vicious circle of killings and truce. It is an endless story of tragedies.'' Abu Mohamed hopes the day will come when his people can live in peace and security. ''We do not want war, we just want a state with recognized borders where we can live in peace and security and can move freely across the border,'' he said. ''We want to live in peace like the rest of the world without killings or massacres.'' Praising Japan's peace efforts and donations for the Palestinians, Abu Mohamed called on the Japanese government to play a more effective role in mediating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Japanese Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Japan's special envoy for the Middle East, Tatsuo Arima, would pay an eight-day visit from Saturday to Israel, the Palestinian territories, Egypt and Syria to help end hostilities in the Gaza Strip and facilitate humanitarian assistance. ''We want the world to intervene to end our suffering,'' he added. ==Kyodo [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
