‘There was a time when Abu Mohammed reaped almost unimaginable riches from a tunnel industry that spurred an unprecedented boom in this once sleepy border town.

More than a million dollars in cash passed through his hands in recent years, he said, from his business of hauling in construction material from Egypt to circumvent the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Unlike dozens of tunnel operators in Rafah, who spent their sudden influx of cash on villas and flashy cars, Abu Mohammed played the long game. Dreaming of more bounty, he invested his earnings in building more tunnels.

But, after Egypt destroyed the 1,200 tunnels that bring Gazans everything from medicine, concrete and weapons to buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, those dreams have come crashing down.’

Read more: Destruction of tunnels marks the end of good times for Gazan entrepreneurs