Welcome to the hellish conditions of the Gaza strip.

Last year, Israelis and the Egyptians closed their borders with the Gaza strip, cutting them off from the rest of the world.

In Pictures: The tunnel diggers.

Unemployment is now at a record high and the need for basic supplies has given birth to a black market economy and a flow of contraband.

Every night after school, children dig tunnels beneath the border of the Gaza strip and Egypt, in a bid to allow merchandise and contraband to be smuggled through.

Merchants then sell everything from medical supplies to cigarettes to the Gazan people at a significant mark up.

The work is life threatening as the tunnels could cave in at any time; however the children say it's the only way to make money for their families.




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TRANSCRIPT

Remember those dramatic scenes a while back of Palestinians charging through the wall that separated the Gaza Strip from Egypt when it was blown up? Well, that border's been sealed again and the Egyptians have warned Hamas not to reopen it. Now the only way into Egypt and back into Gaza is through illegal tunnels that burrow under the border. The tunnellers are Palestinian kids who should be in school, but instead opt to make money in what is potentially a deadly occupation. This report from French filmmakers Stephane Marchetti and Alexis Monchovet is narrated by Dateline's Mark Davis.

REPORTER: Mark Davis

CHILDREN (Translation): Move away from the wire. Keep away from the electricity. You mustn't touch it, it might kill you.

SAID (Translation): Don't worry, I'll hang on to the rope.

CHILDREN (Translation): Hold tight. Careful of the electricity, you should jump.

Said is 14. Every evening, along with his friends, he digs a tunnel beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. There are picks and shovels and pails for removing the sand, the most basic of equipment. And it's a laborious task. The tunnel will have to be 700m long. Hamdan is the strongest. He digs while the others remove the sand. Tonight they'll work eight hours straight, but in the end will only advance by barely 10m. For these youngsters, digging a tunnel for contraband is the only way they can make any money.

RAMDAN (Translation): This job is addictive. When you do it and get a taste for the money, you just can't stop doing it.

JOURNALIST (Translation) : Are you going to do this your whole life?

SAID (Translation): If there’s another job, no. If not, I’d take a year off and then come back to it.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Even as an adult?

SAID (Translation): I’d do this job until my dying day.

For the past eight months, every border post along Gaza Strip has been closed. The tunnels that burrow as far as Egypt are therefore the only way to bring in a whole range of merchandise into the Strip. Last June, Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip, an event that caused consternation in Israel and the West, where Hamas is broadly viewed as a terrorist organisation. After they seized power, the Israelis and the Egyptians closed their borders with the Gaza Strip. There was no way through. Gaza was completely cut off from the rest of the world. With the blockade in place, the need for supplies imposed a black market economy and a flow of contraband.

MAN (Translation): They sell everything here. They sell cigarettes, Viagra, medicine, everything.

CHILD (Translation): OK, it's 170 shekels. Listen, I'll give you a great price, 50 shekels.

MAN (Translation): Don't mess around, kid, the price is 170 shekels!

It's a very lucrative business. With cigarettes, for example, a single packet bought in Egypt for the equivalent of 80 Australian cents can be sold for 10 times the price. Every carton of cigarettes passes through the tunnels that are dug beneath the border. The traffickers dig their way to the basement of an accomplice's house on the Egyptian side. Once the tunnel is secured, they can load up in Egypt and bring their supplies back to the Gaza Strip.

TRAFFICKER (Translation): Because of this blockade and closure they have turned Gaza into one big prison for us. We will only get what we are destined to have. Every one of us carries our life in our hands, and God is with us, God does not forsake anyone. We don’t do this for the sake of it. It’s because of the ongoing blockade against us. We have been living with this closure for a year and a half and our only way out is underground, not above it.

Said and Hamdan live in Rafah, a town cut in two by the border between Gaza and Egypt. They grew up in the neighbourhood where the tunnels are now dug, and where the traffic between the two sides is organised.

CHILDREN (Translation): Everybody started digging a tunnel. That's true.

JOURNALIST (Translation): The elderly, the young, kids?

CHILDREN (Translation): Everyone! There's no work, so everyone digs tunnel.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Even boys of your age?

CHILDREN (Translation): Everyone!

The business holds no secrets for them. Two years ago, Hamdan was filmed digging his first tunnel. At the time, it was a training exercise. He was not yet 13 years old but already determined to make a career.

JOURNALIST (Translation): What are you working for?

RAMDAN (Translation): To build tunnels.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Why?

RAMDAN (Translation): To build a real tunnel.

JOURNALIST (Translation): To transport what?

RAMDAN (Translation): Weapons.

JOURNALIST (Translation): What do you want to do with the weapons?

RAMDAN (Translation): Sell them.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Why? To make money?

RAMDAN (Translation): To fight the Jews.

Since then, he and his friend Said have progressed to real tunnels. The two boys grew up at the foot of the wall that marks the border between the two territories, an uncrossable wall built by the Israelis during the second intifada. In this neighbourhood, most of the youngsters are tempted to make a living by digging contraband tunnels that pass beneath, one of the few ways to make a living here.

MAN: As you see, yesterday night they planned a bomb over there, they let this stupid wall to collapse, the jail is over.

A month ago, Hamas blew up the wall that cut Rafah in two. The Palestinians flocked into Egypt seeking supplies, cows, sheep, cigarettes, fuel, milk, gas. Merchants came from all over Egypt to sell basic goods that are rare and expensive on the Gaza Strip. Said and Hamdan were no different. They crossed the border to make deals with the Egyptians. It was almost a party atmosphere, yet the two young men had mixed feelings, happy to be able to reach Egypt so easily, yet disappointed to be out of business.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Where are you sitting on now?

SAID(Translation): On the wall which separates Egypt and the Gaza Strip, before it fell down the people were besieged. They lifted the blockade on the people and that put an end to tunnel trafficking. People lost their livelihood. Some spent $40,000 on a tunnel that they have now abandoned. It's unfair for us.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Are you happy or not?

RAMDAN (Translation): Yes, I'm happy.

SAID (Translation): But we have lost our job!

RAMDAN (Translation): It's not over! The border will close one day. As long as the border is open, we'll stop. When it's closed, we'll start again.

JOURNALIST (Translation): And today, what do you expect?

RAMDAN (Translation): That the border will close.
JOURNALIST (Translation): What will you do when it's closed?

RAMDAN (Translation): Go back to work.

SAID (Translation): The tunnels will stay there, they are like a buried treasure.

The party would last only 12 days. On Sunday, February 3, the Egyptians once more closed the border with the Gaza Strip. The tunnels in Rafah had to be opened up again, the only passage to Egypt. In Said and Hamdan's neighbourhood, those who don't dig tunnels find themselves in an unbearable situation.

MAN (Translation): There are tunnels everywhere, in front of us, behind us, on our left on our right, to the west, to the east, to the north. Tunnels are around my house, that's not good! If there's any Israeli invasion of Rafah, I'm dead!

JOURNALIST (Translation): Do you have a tunnel at home?

MAN (Translation): No, but they'll attack everybody. They'll bomb everyone.

Two years ago, Israel did bomb the tunnel-diggers' homes. These women lived next door to a trafficker and their house was destroyed.

WOMAN (Translation): Come and see my ruined home.

JOURNALIST (Translation): What happened?

WOMAN JOURNALIST: Tunnels!

JOURNALIST (Translation): Who ruined it?

WOMAN (Translation): They bombed the building just opposite. And our house collapsed with it.

WOMAN 2 (Translation): The government knows everything. Don't think the government doesn't know what's going on. They know everything. They know in which areas how many tunnels there are, who owns them, who finances them, and when the merchandise arrives where it's distributed. They benefit from it.

SAID (Translation): Hamdan, wake up! It's time to go to school! To get educated!

Said is not a good student, but in the band of tunnel-diggers he is a skilled engineer. The traffickers who pay him merely indicate the start and finish points of the tunnel they want built.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Tell me, what are doing?

SAID (Translation): I open Google Earth. I look at the house, at the tunnel starting point, and then I locate my friend's house in Egypt where the tunnel will surface.

He then determines the best route on the Internet and explains the details to the others.

SAID (Translation): We'll pass by the corner of Homail's house, then turn east at the gate and continue on as far as here. That's the house we're aiming for. We'll dig two separate exits. If one is discovered by the Egyptian police, we can use the other one. And we will have a reserve tunnel if one is bombed.

Once the plans are finished, they can start digging. At night they set up a small tent just a few metres from the border.

SAID (Translation): OK, don't pull. Hang on, let it go a bit. Let go!

It's a herculean task. The heat in the tunnel is unbearable and oxygen is ever rarer as they move forward. Above all, it's extremely dangerous. At any moment the tunnel could come crashing down.

RAMDAN (Translation): Sometimes the sand walls collapse in the tunnels. There are risks of electric shock. Sometimes the Egyptians throw gas into the tunnel that might kill us. The Jews might bomb the house while you are in the tunnel.

They're paid only for digging the tunnel. When the work is completed, the trafficking between Egypt and the Gaza Strip will be someone else's business.

SAID (Translation): We are victims. They make us work all the way. For the tunnel opening, they bring in adults who con us and cheat us. They give us $100 and tell us to go and rest. They bring adults in to finish the job, but we're the ones who do all the work. We do all the work and then they swindle us. Other people open the tunnel, do the trafficking and make more money than us.

Said and Hamdan do not attempt to conceal their activities from their families. Since the blockade was imposed, most of their uncles and cousins have been involved in trafficking between Egypt and Gaza. But within the families there are endless arguments between those who dig and those who don't.

UNCLE 1 (Translation): There no harm in it. No advantage. There are benefits. No, not one.

UNCLE 2 (Translation): If your son was ill, and there was no medicine here I've brought medicine back through the tunnels for people who couldn't find any here.

UNCLE 1 (Translation): Can you tell me how many people have died in the tunnels? How many people have died from the Gshouts, the Shoarahs and the Bashashtehs? How many people? The life of one person is worth more than all the tunnels. Is no-one aware of that? You want me to damn myself to hell? It's hell going underground in a rat-hole!

RAMDAN (Translation): There's already been $100,000 invested in the tunnel.

JOURNALIST (Translation): By the tunnel owner?

RAMDANE (Translation): Yes.

JOURNALIST (Translation): And you've spent time down there?

RAMDANE (Translation): We've worked hard, so we're not stopping now just because of a death or two.

Deaths from collapsing tunnels are frequent among these young men. Said and Hamdan are aware of the risks, yet for them the danger is almost incidental. In their circle, anyone who has made any money grew rich from the tunnels.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Do you mind working in tunnels?

SAID (Translation): I like because it make me some money, but sometimes I'm afraid.

JOURNALIST (Translation): Scared of what?

SAID (Translation): You are digging your own grave.

In a few months they will have completed their third tunnel. And as long as the Gaza Strip remains closed, it will be business as usual for Said and Hamdan.

CREDITS

Producers
STEPHANE MARCHETTI
ALEXIS MONCHOVET

Subtitling
JOSEPH ABDO

Audio Sweetening
PETER OREHOV