Play Prod

Rafi, Salman, Said and Ali are all under 18 years old. They come from Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan. After months of wandering, fleeing wars in their country, they found themselves stuck in Calais, where they are trying to survive, waiting for something better. Their dream: to get to England. How? By climbing into containers or slipping onto the axles of trucks, risking their lives. Who cares about these isolated minors in the Calais Jungle, the largest slum in Europe?

Rafah is located in the southern Gaza Strip. It’s a city cut in two by the Philadelphia Road, a security corridor between Sinai and Gaza. It’s destiny changed during the night of 12 September 2005, when the Israeli army withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The Israelis evacuated the Philadelphia Road and the colonies surrounding the city disappeared. But Rafah would never emerge from its chaos. Rafah is the hub of arms trafficking between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Since the Israeli withdrawal, these arms have contributed to the bloody wars between families. After the Hamas victory at the legislative elections, the city sank into a major economic crisis. On 25 June, 2006, Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted by Palestinian militants using a tunnel dug from Rafah. In reprisal, Tsahal shelled the houses of arms dealers located along the Philadelphia Road. By 12 September, 2006, a year after the withdrawal, all hopes of rebirth had died.

Beneath deafening bombs and in tunnels on the brink of collapse, we follow four Palestinian tunnel workers burrowing under the Gaza strip. Six feet under the street where Egypt meets the Gaza strip, they laugh while comparing the conflict to a cartoon: "it's always Jerry who wins"! But this laughter stops when Israel's bombs shake the earth. It's December 2008, and Israel's deadly air strikes, which will destroy almost all of the tunnels transporting supplies from Egypt to Palestine, have begun. When the worst of the bombing stops, the men emerge from the shells of their former homes with new drive: "they destroy one, and another one appears". Because as long as Israel's embargo stands, stopping even foreign aid from coming into Palestine, the tunnels remain an important symbol of resistance and a matter of pride. "Some tunnels transport weapons," acknowledges Abu Sleeman, but for him, it's just about "bringing back food, so people can survive".

A filmmaker follows smugglers in the cramped, dangerous tunnels beneath the Gaza-Egypt border.

Under siege in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian children dig tunnels across the border with Egypt to ensure necessary supplies makes it to those in need.