国际英语新闻：4 killed, 5 wounded of suffocation in Gaza smuggling tunnel

GAZA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Four local Palestinian workers were killed and five wounded on Wednesday evening from suffocation in a smuggling tunnel under the borderline between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, medics and witnesses said.

Adham Abu Selmeya, an emergency official, said according to initial investigations, the nine Palestinian workers had apparently inhaled a poisoned gas spread in the tunnel as they were working there.

The workers were evacuated by ambulances to Abu Yousef al- Najjar hospital in Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip, according to the official.

Meanwhile, witnesses said earlier that the Egyptian security forces blew up a tunnel under the borderline with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening, which resulted in the collapse of the tunnel, killing one and wounded eight others.

Palestinian workers receive medical treatment at a hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip on April 28, 2010. Four local Palestinian workers were killed and five wounded on Wednesday evening from suffocation in a smuggling tunnel under the borderline between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, medics and witnesses said.

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip dug hundreds of tunnels under the border with Egypt to smuggle different kinds of goods from Egypt into Gaza, to defy a tight Israeli blockade imposed on the enclave of more than three years.

Over the past year and a half, Israeli warplanes bombarded dozens of those tunnels, while the Egyptian security forces also blew up and sealed off dozens.

Egypt had also decided to build up a metal underground barrier on its border with the Gaza Strip, ruled by Islamic Hamas movement, in a bid to halt smuggling staff from Egypt into the strip.

According to Gaza rights groups, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed over the past two years while they were working in smuggling tunnels which suddenly collapsed on their heads.