The Role of the Tunnel Economy in Redeveloping Gaza

Abstract

This chapter analyses the people of Gaza’s economic response to the contraction of formal supply lines by the outside world between June 2007 and 2013, and the resulting reconfiguration of Gaza’s economy. It details how the embargo imposed on Gaza by Israel transformed the lives of Gaza’s 1.7 million inhabitants, and rendered them dependent on underground conduits for basic supplies. As a response to years of punishing blockade and economic asphyxiation, this chapter shows that the tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border offer a powerful example of human endurance amidst adversity. It further argues that this reconfiguration of Gaza’s economic systems spurred growth, to the point where the concept ‘de-development’ requires revisiting when applied to the Gazan economy until General Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi took power in Egypt in July 2013, overthrew its Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed al-Morsi, and as part of his campaign against Islamist movements in and around Egypt dismantled most of the tunnel complex that supplied Gaza and its Islamist rulers, Hamas.