Palestinian worker killed in electric shock in Rafah tunnel

[ 19/07/2010 - 05:10 PM ]

RAFAH, (PIC)-- A Palestinian worker was killed Monday morning by an electric shock inside a tunnel on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, medical sources said.

The Palestinian Health Ministry’s Emergency Services Director, Muawiya Hassanein, said that 22-year-old Ammad Assaf of Jabalya died Monday morning in a Rafah tunnel as a result of an electric shock, adding that Assaf was dead on arrival when he was taken to the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah.

In similar instances, Hassanein said that ambulance and civil defense crews were able to remove Sunday three people from a collapsed tunnel across from the Salahuddeen entrance south of Rafah and transport them to the Yousef al-Najjar hospital. The medical emergency team ascertained that no one was missing in the tunnel following the rescue operation, he added.

Palestinians use the tunnels to transport goods and fuel to the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli siege since the summer of 2007.

156 Palestinians have been killed in tunnels during the past two years in separate incidents, according to official Palestinian human rights statistics.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian