Life and death amid the ruins of Rafah

"The people who run the tunnels are a kind of mafia; they don't care about other people," he added, referring to the lucrative practice of using the tunnels to smuggle commercial goods in a time when Palestinian trade with the outside world is difficult at best.

Abu Nameh herself says there was no tunnel and blames neighbors for making false accusations against her family.

Abu Ghazi and other Palestinians argue that Israel is successfully using the tunnels as a pretext to clear Palestinians buildings and people from their land. An Israeli officer familiar with the situation in Rafah, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says many of the buildings demolished by Israeli forces have been abandoned.

"The houses that are close to the Egyptian border, where there is shooting and firing all day, these houses are full of holes and damage that comes from the shooting, from both sides - Palestinian and Israeli," this officer says. "It's a firing zone. How can people live in a firing zone?"

The Rafah Governorate says Israel has completely demolished more than 1,200 houses, including 266 in this month's incursion. Israel's tally for this month is closer to 45, the officer says. "Wherever we found a tunnel, the house was demolished. Every house that was involved in shooting against the forces was demolished."

International human rights groups have criticized Israel's tactics.

On Oct. 13, Amnesty International said it condemned "in the strongest possible terms the large-scale destruction by the Israeli army of Palestinian homes in ... Rafah, which made homeless hundreds of people, including many children and elderly people."

The Israelis say they "coordinate" with Egyptian authorities in tunnel eradication. "They report to us when they find tunnels, and they do find them sometimes," says the Israeli officer, adding that Egypt doesn't offer the sort of side-by-side operational assistance that Israel would need to eliminate the tunnels altogether.

The IDF says it has found 39 tunnels this year, including three in this month's operation.

The years of violence in Rafah have turned the areas closest to the border - once a hive of cement buildings - into desolate stretches of demolished or ruined dwellings. A teenager named Ahmad Abu Sweileh stays close to his family home, sleeping on a plastic mat in an abandoned building.

The other day Mr. Abu Sweileh gave a tour of his neighborhood, stepping over big chunks of broken concrete and keeping himself and his visitors out of sight of an Israeli watchtower, apparently fearful that the troops might shoot. The only sounds were the distant roar of an Israeli F-16 overhead, an Israeli bulldozer rumbling somewhere along the border fence, and the tweeting of birds.

In one of the still-inhabited houses in the area, a grandmother named Huda Abu Shammaleh sat on a plastic chair in her courtyard and recounted how the Israelis demolished her son's adjoining home five months ago. The Israelis blew it apart, she said, "because my son is wanted."

Her voice rising in volume and stridency, she explained why: "He's fighting the enemy; we are fighting for our rights. May we defeat them!"

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