Tunnel that Israel bombed, killing one, was used for bringing sugar

Ma'an -- Egyptian authorities said officers seized three smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border on Thursday morning, in addition to several tons of sugar prepared for transport into the coastal enclave.

One of the three tunnels, Egyptian sources added, was bombed a day earlier by the Israeli airforce. The tunnel opened in Egypt's As-Sarsourya area in Rafah.

On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes hit two tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip. A statement from the Israeli military said the strike targeted a tunnel on the Philadelphi corridor on the Egypt-Gaza border, and added that it was a "Hamas operated tunnel ... used to smuggle terrorists into the Gaza Strip so that they could execute attacks against Israeli civilians."

[International humanitarian aid agencies such as the Red Cross have issued numerous statements about the crisis in Gaze due to the Israeli siege.]

Two other tunnels were seized by Egyptian officials, sources said, both located in the Salah Ad-Din area. No goods or smugglers were found during the raids, police noted.

A report from Egyptian security said that so far, 550 smuggling tunnels had been shut down, noting that 15 of them had been dug for the transport of cars into Gaza.

On Thursday, Israeli officials informed Palestinian crossing liaison officers that an earlier decision to allow cars to enter the Gaza Strip had been reversed.