Palestinians Cross Gaza-Egypt Border

Source: Alalam.ir, 23-1-2008
GAZA CITY--Thousands of Palestinians poured out of Gaza and into Egypt early Wednesday after gunmen blew dozens of holes in the wall delineating the border.
Gazans crossed the border to buy food, fuel and other supplies that have become scarce in Gaza because of an "Israeli" blockade.
Egyptian guards took no action as the Gazans crossed the border. Police from Gaza's ruling Hamas movement also stood by.
Before dawn Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen began blowing holes in the border wall.
Hamas security later closed all but two, but allowed free traffic through them.
The forced entry came just hours after a tense stand-off at the closed Rafah border crossing, where gunfire erupted after a group of Palestinian demonstrators forced their way across.
The Gazans, most of them women, were detained by Egyptian troops but released after the protest was dispersed by baton-wielding Hamas-run police.
They had been protesting a months-long "Israeli" blockade of the impoverished territory that was tightened on Thursday to a full-scale lockdown, with the occupation regime halting all fuel shipments and even the entry of humanitarian aid.
The Hamas-run government in Gaza has repeatedly called on Egypt to open its border to relieve the "Israeli" blockade.
On Tuesday "Israel" allowed in shipments of cooking gas and fuel to power Gaza's sole power station, which ground to a halt Sunday night plunging much of Gaza City into darkness and prompting fears of a humanitarian crisis.
But the Palestinians have demanded a complete end to the siege amid widespread warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
"This is insufficient and we will continue our efforts to get a total lifting of the blockade," Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmud Abbas, whose security forces were driven from Gaza in June 2007, told reporters on Tuesday.
International humanitarian organizations have meanwhile kept up warnings of an impending humanitarian disaster if "Israel" continues to close off Gaza to all but vital goods.
"The blockade measures have an enormous human cost and we have asked "Israel" to immediately lift all retaliatory measures," Dorothea Krimitsas, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said in Geneva.
On Tuesday an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council failed to produce a statement on the Gaza conflict that took into account the impact of the blockade.
Libya, the council chair this month, submitted a draft that would call on "Israel" to end its blockade of Gaza and ensure "unhindered access for humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people".
In the last week "Israeli" occupying regime has martyred at least 38 Palestinians in a wave of strikes as Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 200 rockets and mortars, slightly wounding 10 people.