The Egyptian military announced on Sunday that it had destroyed the tunnels in the Sinai Peninsula, but did not say when they were demolished.

The tunnels are the only lifeline for Palestinians living under the Israeli siege and Egypt has so far laid waste to 1,639 of them.

Since the ouster of Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi last July, the Egyptian military, led by former general and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has launched a campaign to destroy the tunnels, preventing the people in Gaza from bringing in most of their basic goods such as food, construction materials, and fuel into the coastal enclave, which has been hit by Israeli airstrikes since July 8.

Thousands of Zionist soldiers launched a ground incursion into the densely-populated strip on July 17.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed so far in the Israeli aggression and at least 6,000 others have been injured in the onslaught.

The Zionist regime admits that 43 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the war, but Hamas sources put the number at near 90.

Gaza has been blockaded by the Israeli regime since June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

The apartheid regime of Israel denies about 1.7 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs that pay proper wages, and adequate healthcare and education.

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