Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels 2007. When Hamas seized power in 2007, Egypt and Israel closed borders with Gaza. In 2009, Egypt began the construction of an underground barrier to block existing tunnels and make new ones harder to dig. In 2011, Egypt relaxed restrictions at its border with the Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians to cross freely. In 2013–2014, Egypt's military has destroyed most of the 1,200 smuggling tunnels which were used to smuggle food, weapons and other goods into Gaza. The smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip are tunnels connecting both sides of the Gaza–Egypt border, used to bypass the Rafah Border Crossing, which
Gaza Strip Israel as the occupying power in Gaza under the traditional law of occupation," but that some legal theories might downplay the significance of the lack of an Israeli presence on the ground, and that Israel still continues to exercise some control over Gaza in parallel with the Palestinian Authority. Shany wrote that "in order to identify the ultimate power of government in Gaza one should engage in a comparative analysis of the degree of effective control exercised by the two competing sources of authority." Some analysts have argued that the Gaza Strip can be considered a "de facto" independent state,