The Gaza Strip has lost its last lifeline after five days of Israeli bombing raids that destroyed dozens of smuggling tunnels under the sandy border with Egypt.

The passages did not just supply Hamas with arms, but brought in flour, fuel and baby milk. For Gazans, already used to blackouts and shortages from an 18-month border blockade, the daily hunt for basics is ever more desperate - although there are no reports of outright hunger.

”I fed the children cooked tomatoes today, I can’t find bread,” Nima Burdeini, a mother of 11, said at the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Israeli warplanes pounded the illicit tunnels as part of the heavy bombardment of Hamas targets in Gaza that began on Saturday. The hundreds of tunnels were seen as key to keeping Hamas in power.

Most of Gaza’s 3,900 factories have closed, unable to import raw materials or export products. Construction stopped and thousands of people were thrown out of work, deepening poverty in an area where most of the 1.4 million residents rely on UN food aid.

At times, Israel tightened the closure, restricting the inflow of fuel, cash and other key supplies. The blockade caused frequent power cuts and interruptions in the water supply.

In the two months leading up to Israel’s offensive, Gaza was kept tightly sealed in an attempt to force occupants to stop firing rockets at southern Israeli towns.

The tunnels became a lifesaver for Hamas - and for Gaza. Most of the underground passages were used to haul in consumer goods, from motor bikes to goats, refrigerators, flour and chocolates.

The tunnel area that residents once jokingly referred to as Gaza’s “duty-free zone” is now a wasteland of smashed concrete and deep craters, churned up by Israeli bombs.

Tonight, the tunnel area was struck 19 times within a half hour, residents said. Gaza health official Moawiya Hassanain said two people were killed and 16 injured, including six women and four children.

Before that report, Israeli air force officials said the bombing campaign had demolished more than 80 tunnels. Egyptian officials said the number was at least 120.

Residents say there are several hundred tunnels under the nine-mile border. Owners said they believe many tunnels are badly damaged, but tunnel workers fear going near the area to check because of the attacks.

The tunnels are not visible from the air, but their locations are well known and brazen owners put up colourful tents over tunnel entrances.

Economist Omar Shaban estimated some two-thirds of goods sold in Gaza came through the tunnels.

From diggers to drivers and hauliers, the passages employed around 12,000 Gazans, Shaban said.

”It was Gaza’s new economy, even if it was just importing commercial goods,” he said.

Tunnel owner Abu Sufian said he and his colleagues lost millions of dollars in merchandise that they had paid for, but that cannot be delivered now from the Egyptian side.

Shaban said destroying the tunnels would bruise, but not bloody Hamas’s Gaza rule.

Hamas also funds itself through local taxes and a network of businesses controlled by loyalists, he said.

But demolishing the tunnels has deepened civilian suffering.

Throughout Gaza, Israel’s bombings have brought Gaza’s dwindling economic activity to a halt. For fear of getting caught in an airstrike, wholesalers are not distributing their goods and many shopkeepers stay home.

Shelves are emptying at grocery stores. In most areas, the few shops open are those whose owners live nearby. People do not venture beyond their own streets, leaving them hostage to shortages and rising prices. Flour for baking is in short supply, and there is little cash to buy goods because banks are closed.

Burdeni, 45, the mother of 11, relies on UN aid to feed her children, but officials halted food distribution on December 18, citing shortages caused by the border closure.

”People are doing pretty badly. Everyone we know is sharing whatever they have, not just with their families but with their neighbours,” said Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the UN Relief and Works Agency, which helps needy Palestinians.

”We haven’t seen widespread hunger. We do see for the very first time - I’ve been here for eight years and seeing new things nowadays - people going through the rubbish dumps looking for things, people begging, which is quite a new phenomenon as well,” she said by video link to reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

Chris Gunness, a UN spokesman, said aid distribution should resume tomorrow as Israel allows humanitarian aid into Gaza. The United Nations issued a new emergency appeal today to deal with the new crisis.

Burdeni’s brother gives her small amounts of cash, but the search for food is becoming tougher. Burdeni found tomatoes today, cooking them when electricity flickered on in her area. “My children ate it with spoons,” she said bitterly.

Meanwhile, tunnel owners watch and wait.

”Even as they bomb us, we are thinking of how to make new tunnels. Maybe we’ll try go under the sea,” said tunnel owner Abu Sufian.