Working Conditions in Gaza

I recall reading years ago that the ancient Egyptians, having completed the construction of a pyramid, would kill the workers who built it so that they couldn't reveal the labyrinth of tunnels leading to the tombs of the kings and the treasure therein.

Things haven't changed much in the last 7000 years in that part of the world. The Times of Israel has a story relating how the very same fate may have awaited those who dug the tunnels for Hamas:

Hamas executed dozens of diggers responsible for its extensive tunnel system in past weeks, fearing the workers would reveal the site locations to Israel, a report on the Mako website’s army blog said.

The tunnelers, many of whom constructed the tunnels over the course of months, would dig for 8-12 hours a day, and received a monthly wage of $150-$300, according to the blog.

And low-skilled workers in the U.S. think they have it bad because they only get $7.25 an hour to cook french fries, and their bosses aren't threatening to kill them when their shift is over. One wonders why these poor tunnel diggers didn't unionize.

Sources in Gaza told the website that Hamas took a series of precautions to prevent information from reaching Israel. The terror organization would reportedly blindfold the excavators enroute to the sites and back, to prevent them from recognizing the locations. The tunnels were strictly supervised by Hamas members, and civilians were kept far from the sites.

M., a former tunnel digger and Israeli collaborator, told the website that Hamas would strip search the workers to ensure they had no recording devices or cameras hidden on them.

After the tunnels were completed, dozens were reportedly executed to prevent intelligence leaks to Israel. “Anyone they suspected might transfer information to Israel on the tunnels was killed by the military wing,” a different source said. “They were very cruel.”

Yes, of course they're cruel, but not nearly as cruel as Israelis, we're told by the leftist media, who kill Palestinians when they take out Hamas' rocket launchers which Hamas places on the roofs of the Palestinian's houses.

Reading further we learn that the Palestinian equivalent of OSHA is really fumbling the ball:

In 2012, a Journal of Palestine Studies article claimed 160 Palestinian children were killed while working on Hamas’s tunnel system.

One hundred sixty children killed in the first two years of constructing tunnels to enable Hamas to kill Israeli children. How many have died in the last two years? And there's been not a peep about this from those in the world community standing atop the lofty Moral High Ground hurling imprecations at the Israelis for accidentally killing other children Hamas deliberately placed in harm's way. We see no news footage of bereaved parents of the child tunnel diggers wailing at their child's funeral because, presumably, such scenes are newsworthy only if the Israelis can be blamed for the children's deaths.

And note this:

The digging of tunnels began four years ago and has demanded 40 percent of Hamas’s budget, The Times of Israel has learned.

Tunnel diggers have been using electric or pneumatic jackhammers, advancing 4-5 meters a day. The tunnels found were reportedly mostly dug 18-25 meters (60-82 feet) underground, though one was discovered at a depth of 35 meters (115 feet). “That’s like a 10-story building underground,” one expert said.

The Palestinian people live in penury, allegedly because of the evil Israelis, yet over the last four years 40% of their government's economic resources, not to mention the human lives, have been squandered on building tunnels constructed for no purpose other than to kill Israelis.

Not only is it absurd to try to draw some kind of moral equivalence between Hamas and the Israelis, as is done in the West every time open conflict breaks out, it's obscene.