What makes people risk their lives try to smuggle in goods is nothing more than sheer survival. Gaza is in survival mode, trying desperately to survive and live. And Egypt wants to remove this and assist Israel in punishing an entire population held captive:
LINK December 29, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) -Well informed sources revealed one of the secrets of wall of death being implemented by the Egyptian government on the border with the Gaza Strip which is a water system to be used for flooding existing tunnels and drowning anyone trying to dig new ones.
The sources said that holes are being dug on the Palestinian side of the fence and pipes, 20 to 30 meters long inserted in the holes. The work on the wall is being carried by Egyptian workers employed by the "Arab contractors" in the presence of foreign engineers on site. (Americans are working with the Egyptians)
According to the sources a 10 kilometer main pipe will carry water from the sea and distribute it to a comb of pipes planted in the ground about 30-40 meters apart which will be used as a first line of defense against tunnel diggers.
The sources added that the pipes that will be planted in the ground have holes and will regularly irrigate the soil which will cause present tunnels to collapse and will make it harder to dig new ones, and will have detrimental influence on the soil on the Palestinian side while the thirty to 35 meter deep steel wall protects the soil on the Egyptian side from such effects.
The Gaza Strip, which has been under siege for over three years, depends on those tunnels for food, milk, fuel and other essential goods smuggled from the Egyptian side. Not only that but the Egyptian side has also benefited economically from those tunnels.