Dozens of Gazan smugglers were back on the border with Egypt today openly repairing and restarting tunnels between the two territories after three weeks of intense Israeli air strikes.

There were deep impact craters in the soil just a few hundred yards from the border, but many of the tunnels appeared to be at least partly intact. Several tents covering tunnel entrances were still standing, though most were pockmarked by shrapnel. Bulldozers were clearing away sand as men dug for the wood-reinforced wells that descend around 15 metres from the surface into the tunnels.

Israel set as one of its war aims in Gaza the destruction hundreds of tunnels that have brought goods in from Egypt for several years. Most of what arrived was food, cigarettes, fuel, even farm animals - all intended to break Israel's tough economic blockade - but some of the tunnels were used to bring in cash and weaponry for armed groups, including the Islamist movement Hamas, which runs Gaza.

On Saturday, the last day of the conflict, the Israeli military said it bombed more than 100 tunnels in southern Gaza. Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, is due to fly to Brussels later today in the hope of signing a deal under which the EU would provide forces to prevent border smuggling. A similar deal was signed with the US.

However, none of that seemed to deter smugglers who returned to work within days of Israel's ceasefire. At one tent today, a labourer lowered himself down by an electric winch to the floor of a tunnel. A generator was running outside, piping air in so he could breathe.

The owner, who refused to give his name, said his tunnel was around 300 metres long and had been built three months ago - during the previous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It had cost him around $70,000 (£50,000) - a cost usually shared between several people.

"I don't know why they didn't bomb my tent," he said. " The bombs might target me at home or in the tunnels, wherever we are. What can we do?"

He said the bombing had caused some damage underground but it was minor and goods were already being brought through from Egypt. Forty or so white sacks stacked up inside the tent had taken about 20 hours to bring through from the Egyptian side. Each contained a box of 12 kerosene heaters.

The owner used to work in Israel but for several years work permits have been refused for most Palestinians and so, he said, he had turned to smuggling milk, chocolate, gas and kerosene.

Like many others, he believed the Egyptians were unlikely to stop the flow of commercial goods under the border because it offered a good business to those on both sides. "I will try to buy them with money," he said. "I'm not afraid of the Egyptians, just of the Israeli planes."

Although commercial smuggling is restarting, there is likely to be heavy international pressure on Egypt to prevent weapons smuggling. So far Egypt has resisted calls for an international force to be deployed on its side of the border.

Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian elections three years ago, Israel has imposed ever tighter economic pressure on the Gaza Strip, which for the past year and a half has amounted to a punitive blockade under which all exports were banned and only a restricted list of humanitarian goods were allowed in. Even concrete is excluded. Egypt has kept its Rafah crossing largely closed as well.

One of the main demands of Hamas has been that the crossings into Gaza should be allowed to reopen fully.

Israel is allowing in a number of lorries each day, but at a level far below what aid agencies and the UN say is the basic requirement. Even before the war, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the blockade amounted to collective punishment of the civilian population.

The blockade is likely to remain for now. Israel wants guarantees that no UN projects benefit Hamas and, diplomats say, it has asked the UN and other aid groups to give a detailed list of goods, equipment and staff they want to bring into Gaza.