CAIRO - The Egyptian authorities have destroyed six tunnels used to smuggle contraband fuel and food to the Gaza Strip, the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The tunnels along Egypt’s border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip also contained piping, toys, car spare parts as well as clothes and other products destined for the Palestinians.

MENA did not say when they were discovered or when they were destroyed.

Egypt installed surveillance cameras along its border with Gaza as part of efforts to curb arms smuggling into the Palestinian territory, an Egyptian security official said at the end of January.

He said it was the first phase of a high-tech security system being installed with US assistance, to bolster ceasefires that Israel and Hamas declared on January 18 to end the Jewish state’s 22-day war on Gaza.

The Palestinians have been using the tunnels to ferry food supplies and other necessities into the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since June 2007.

Israel claims the tunnels are also used by the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza to smuggle weapons including rockets into the Gaza Strip for use against the Jewish state.

Israeli jets bombed the tunnels during the war, which was launched to stop rocket attacks from Gaza, and has carried several bombing raids against the tunnels since the January 18 ceasefires.

MENA also reported that security officials seized pick-up trucks that were transporting cattle and electricity generators to Gaza across Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, without providing a date.

On Sunday, the chief of Israel’s internal security services Yuval Diskin praised Egypt’s efforts to fight smuggling operations.