There have been four men who are reportedly had gone missing after a smuggling tunnel connecting the Gaza Strip with Egypt collapsed on them have been confirmed dead by the Palestinian officers.

The emergency workers have already recovered the bodies of three men but the fourth body is still missing. The spokesman of the Gaza-based health ministry, Ahraf al-Qudra told the news agency. Search crews had been looking for the bodies since last week, when the tunnel collapsed after being flooded.

The tunnel collapse is the latest in a series of cave-ins to claim Palestinian lives. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in collapses since the beginning of the year. Egypt has been using waste water and sea water to flood the tunnels over the past three years in an effort to fight the spread of cross-border routes.

The identities of the deceased have not yet confirmed by officials but Al-Aqsa Radio , run by Gaza's Hamas said that the men drowned was in the tunnel were Palestinians.

The tunnel collapse is the latest in a series of cave-ins to claim Palestinian lives. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in collapses since the beginning of the year.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has cracked down on the smuggling tunnels since assuming office in 2014. Before is term there were an estimated 1,800 tunnels under the border, used to smuggle goods into Gaza, from food and medicine to cigarettes, diesel, clothing and disassembled cars. And in the same year, an Israeli Assault on Gaza killed more that 2,200 Palestinians and more that 70 Israelis.

There are thousand of houses that was damaged or entirely destroyed by Israeli bombs which had left ten thousands of Palestinians with no houses.

The said Gaza Strip has a measurement of 360 square kilometers and has been under a tight Israeli blockade ever since the Hamas movement's takeover of the coastal enclave in June 2007.