Gazans still flooding into Egypt as Hamas holds talks with Cairo
Source: Compiled by Daily Star, 02-01-2008
Thousands of Gazans poured over the breached border with Egypt for a 10th straight day on Friday as officials in Cairo held fresh talks with Hamas on restoring order. For a second day, Egyptian security forces attempted to block vehicles passing through the two makeshift crossing points in the divided border town of Rafah.
But the action drew an angry response from Hamas militants who tore down the heavy metal roadblocks erected by police, prompting the Egyptian authorities to allow cars through in the afternoon, according to an AFP correspondent.
Motorists were unable to drive too far into the Egyptian part of Rafah, however, as police set up roadblocks, causing immense traffic jams.
The leading Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram had announced in its Friday edition that the authorities would close one of the two crossings blown open in the border wall within hours in readiness for the complete resealing of the frontier.
But both the Brazil and Salahuddin Gate breaches remained open throughout the day, supervised by Egyptian police and Hamas paramilitaries.
An Egyptian policeman told AFP he had no idea when the border would finally be resealed. "No one knows except President [Hosni] Mubarak," the policeman added.
Many of the Gazans crossing Friday voiced fears that it would be their last chance to stock up on goods rendered scarce at home by the "Israeli" lockdown imposed on January 17.
"It appears that they'll close the border soon," said Nabil Khader, who had come from the Gaza Strip's second-largest city of Khan Yunis to stock up. "It's terrible because we're slowly starving to death in Gaza."
Amid these fears, OPEC's humanitarian arm said Friday it had approved $5 million to help ease suffering in Gaza.
Gazans said they could easily repeat last week's operation in which they blew up large sections of the border wall if Egypt attempted to reseal it.
"This time we'll blow up the whole border not just sections of it," said one Palestinian.
Meanwhile, the Islamist movement's exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, held a new round of talks in Cairo with intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's pointman for Palestinian affairs.
Hamas officials said they were asking that the makeshift crossings remain open until new procedures have been agreed upon to allow the reopening of Rafah's recognized border terminal, which has remained largely shut since June 2006.
The Islamists insist that they cannot accept a return to a 2005 agreement reached by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he still controlled Gaza. Under it, the terminal was to be supervised by European Union monitors with cameras allowing round-the-clock surveillance by "Israel".
"We said the border must be under Egyptian-Palestinian control with no 'Israeli' interference ... and with no European partners," said former Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official who took part in the talks.
But he added that Hamas was prepared to accept the deployment at the terminal of representatives of Abbas, whose security forces Hamas ousted from Gaza in June last year.
Abbas has insisted control over the Palestinian territories' international borders is the right of the Palestinian Authority.
At the Rafah border, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told several hundred demonstrators who had gathered to demand the permanent reopening of the terminal that the Islamists would not give in.
"We in Hamas will not accept a return by the occupier to the Rafah terminal whatever the sacrifices," he told the crowd.
"We have called for the border to remain open until the question of the control of the Rafah terminal has been settled. Our message is clear - the Palestinian people will not accept a return to the previous arrangements," he said.
Separately Friday, Hamas freed an aide to Palestinian Premier Salam Fayyad detained for over six weeks, amid reports that a release of Fatah and Hamas prisoners was being mediated.
Thousands of Gazans poured over the breached border with Egypt for a 10th straight day on Friday as officials in Cairo held fresh talks with Hamas on restoring order. For a second day, Egyptian security forces attempted to block vehicles passing through the two makeshift crossing points in the divided border town of Rafah.
But the action drew an angry response from Hamas militants who tore down the heavy metal roadblocks erected by police, prompting the Egyptian authorities to allow cars through in the afternoon, according to an AFP correspondent.
Motorists were unable to drive too far into the Egyptian part of Rafah, however, as police set up roadblocks, causing immense traffic jams.
The leading Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram had announced in its Friday edition that the authorities would close one of the two crossings blown open in the border wall within hours in readiness for the complete resealing of the frontier.
But both the Brazil and Salahuddin Gate breaches remained open throughout the day, supervised by Egyptian police and Hamas paramilitaries.
An Egyptian policeman told AFP he had no idea when the border would finally be resealed. "No one knows except President [Hosni] Mubarak," the policeman added.
Many of the Gazans crossing Friday voiced fears that it would be their last chance to stock up on goods rendered scarce at home by the "Israeli" lockdown imposed on January 17.
"It appears that they'll close the border soon," said Nabil Khader, who had come from the Gaza Strip's second-largest city of Khan Yunis to stock up. "It's terrible because we're slowly starving to death in Gaza."
Amid these fears, OPEC's humanitarian arm said Friday it had approved $5 million to help ease suffering in Gaza.
Gazans said they could easily repeat last week's operation in which they blew up large sections of the border wall if Egypt attempted to reseal it.
"This time we'll blow up the whole border not just sections of it," said one Palestinian.
Meanwhile, the Islamist movement's exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, held a new round of talks in Cairo with intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's pointman for Palestinian affairs.
Hamas officials said they were asking that the makeshift crossings remain open until new procedures have been agreed upon to allow the reopening of Rafah's recognized border terminal, which has remained largely shut since June 2006.
The Islamists insist that they cannot accept a return to a 2005 agreement reached by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas when he still controlled Gaza. Under it, the terminal was to be supervised by European Union monitors with cameras allowing round-the-clock surveillance by "Israel".
"We said the border must be under Egyptian-Palestinian control with no 'Israeli' interference ... and with no European partners," said former Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official who took part in the talks.
But he added that Hamas was prepared to accept the deployment at the terminal of representatives of Abbas, whose security forces Hamas ousted from Gaza in June last year.
Abbas has insisted control over the Palestinian territories' international borders is the right of the Palestinian Authority.
At the Rafah border, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told several hundred demonstrators who had gathered to demand the permanent reopening of the terminal that the Islamists would not give in.
"We in Hamas will not accept a return by the occupier to the Rafah terminal whatever the sacrifices," he told the crowd.
"We have called for the border to remain open until the question of the control of the Rafah terminal has been settled. Our message is clear - the Palestinian people will not accept a return to the previous arrangements," he said.
Separately Friday, Hamas freed an aide to Palestinian Premier Salam Fayyad detained for over six weeks, amid reports that a release of Fatah and Hamas prisoners was being mediated.
