This is just how it used to be in Auschwitz, right? Laptops, cell phones, and Gucci?

Rub your eyes in disbelief in the face of the economic boom taking place in tunnel city: Stock markets are crashing and the world is facing a crisis, yet in Gaza 500 supermarkets flourish. A mega-store underground. Each tunnel has a manager, smuggler, diggers who travel from one site to another, merchants, intermediaries, a driver, and customers who provide a shopping list. If you ask for something today, you’ll get it two days from now... They do smuggle plenty of computers and cellular phones, jeans, sneakers, cement, furniture, medicine, food, and mostly chocolate... Welcome to the ungrounded Palestinian mall system. If you walk into the living room, you will see a smuggler carrying a pile of laptops... Yesterday, a new glasses boutique was opened. Prada and Gucci frames arrived all the way from the Dubai, and prices are sky-high.

That doesn't do much for the "Gaza = Auschwitz, Jews = Nazis" narrative so beloved by the anti-Israel bien pensant (although that vicious lie wasn't exactly grounded in levelheaded analysis to begin with). The charming thing is how Hamas is putting their tunnel-making skills to new and diverse uses:

A small item in the Palestinian Arab Firas Press website (Arabic): Witnesses said that a Hamas tunnel collapsed today in the Atatra area north of Beit Lahiya. Witnesses said the Hamas gunmen sealed off the area in order to help rescue and evacuation... This tunnel is not in Rafah. It is in Beit Lahiya. Beit Lahiya is also a border town, but it does not border Egypt. It borders Israel. Somehow, I don’t think that Hamas is building tunnels to smuggle in supplies from Israel. It sounds more like they want another few Gilad Shalits.

While everyone else on the planet sits on their hands and awaits the US election - no one wants to get tagged for interfering - Hamas is apparently trying to start a war. Or maybe they were saving the tunnel until after January, counting on a we scratched your back now you scratch ours nudge-wink. In the meantime, Olmert's weakness on Goldwasser and Regev - releasing a cretinous child murderer for the bodies of two Israeli boys - has encouraged Hamas to up the ante for Gilad Shalit. Of course it has.

References:
* Gaza’s shopping heaven [YNet]
* New Data Confirms Old Data: Blaming Israel For Gaza's Medical Collapse Is A Vicious Lie [MR]
* Not just another tunnel collapse [Elder]
* Summer Camp Funtime For Palestinian Kids - Getting Brainwashed, Learning How To Launch Qassams (Plus: New Anti-Rocket Lasers) [MR]
* Sources: Hamas has raised price of Shalit deal in wake of Kuntar release [Ha'aretz]

Previously:
* Hamas Creates Humanitarian Crisis By Stealing Fuel For Terrorism, Preventing Israeli Gas Shipments, And Cutting Off Gaza Civilians. Again. (Plus: International Press, Human Rights Groups Blame Israel. Again)
* Hamas Brags About Violating Truce, More Rockets Fall On Israeli Schools And Hospitals
* Nazi Zionist Regime Responds To Hamas Terrorism Attempts, Deadly Ambushes, And Rocket Fire By Renewing Fuel Supplies To Gaza