Smoke billows from the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah after an Israeli air-strike targeted smuggling tunnels linking the besieged coastal enclave with Egypt on March 3. The strikes came as the UN under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, warned of an impending humanitarian disaster if Egypt succeeds in blocking the tunnels that pass under its border into the Gaza Strip. "If those tunnels were blocked, however undesirable they may be, and however undesirable the effect they're having on the Gazan society and Gazan economy, the situation without the tunnels would be completely unsustainable," said Holmes, who visited the region for four days earlier this month.

Photo: MaanImages/Hatem Omar