A Palestinian works in a tunnel in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on the border with Egypt, on July 19, 2009. A total of 115 people have been killed in the tunnels since Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza two years ago. [Xinhua]

A Palestinian teenager was killed Sunday evening in an accident inside an underground smuggling tunnel between Egypt and Rafah city in southern Gaza Strip, medical sources and witnesses said.

Mouawia Hassanein, an emergency official, said that Majed Abu Zuhri, 17, had been pulled out dead from the tunnel that collapsed beneath the border line.

He added that the boy was suffocated because the fall damaged a pipe in which gasoline was being pumped to the Palestinian side.

Witnesses said that the tunnel has apparently fallen after Egyptian security forces bombed the shafts of several tunnels on the Egyptian side of the border.

Since the afternoon, the residents of Rafah said they have heard sounds of explosions and they had found out that the Egyptian forces were blowing up the tunnels.

Egypt has cracked down from time to time against the smuggling tunnels, which the Palestinians use to bring in a variety of goods that have been missing in Gaza markets due to Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, in a bid to limit the contraband.

Tens of Palestinian contraband workers have been killed in similar incidents.

(Xinhua News Agency July 20, 2009)