The Wednesday announcement did not mention when the supply tunnels were demolished, but the US-backed Egyptian military had poured troops into the adjacent Sinai Peninsula to battle what they have referred to as rising militancy in the area since last July, when the army forced the ouster of the nation’s first freely-elected President Mohamed Morsi.   

Egyptian ties with the Palestinian movement took a turn for the worse after the forced ouster of Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has always maintained amicable ties with Hamas.

The tunnels, under the town of Rafah, are used to transfer food, fuel and consumer products into the densely populated Palestinian enclave and therefore remain a vital source of basic goods that are essential for the livelihood of Gazans.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli-imposed land, air and sea blockade since 2006 and often described as the world’s largest open-air prison.

Egypt’s army-led government accuses Hamas of having colluded with the Brotherhood in carrying out "terror attacks" on its territory in the past few years, an allegation fiercely rejected by the Palestinian movement that insists the Israeli regime remains its only immediate enemy.

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