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Egyptian desert a smuggler's paradise
Ahmed and Khalil sit on cushions in the living room of a North Sinai mansion flicking through channels of Iraqi music videos and feasting on take-away from a local fish restaurant. Like many area Bedouins, the pair, who asked their real names not be used, make their living smuggling goods from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula into the Gaza Strip.
"We need jobs, money–all the things people need," says Ahmed dipping bread into a tub of tahina sitting next to a pistol on the carpeted floor. "We don't love Palestinians, we love money."
Near the Egypt-Gaza border, newly constructed three-story villas tower over traditional Bedouin homes made of brush. This area of North Sinai, inhabited primarily by traditionally nomadic Bedouin herders and farmers, has long been one of Egypt's poorest areas.
Now, a new-class of ultra-rich local smugglers cruise the desert in late-model SUVs and pick-ups, occasionally stuffing bills into the hands of the less-fortunate Bedouins who still live among sand dunes on a few dollars per day. Here, smuggling has been a welcome opportunity among otherwise feeble employment prospects.