Egyptian and Hamas security forces closed the border between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday, nearly two weeks after resistance fighters blew open the frontier amid as Israeli occupation blockade, a security source and witnesses said. “Security forces have starting closing the border,” an Egyptian security source said. “No more Palestinians are being allowed in.”
One gate remained open to allow Palestinians to return to Gaza and Egyptians to return home. Other than people returning home, no pedestrians or vehicles were being allowed to cross. Hundreds of thousands of people have streamed across the border since Palestinian fighters blew open and bulldozed large sections of the barrier wall on January 22 after a near week-long Israeli occupation lockdown of the territory.
On Saturday, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who had returned from talks in Cairo, said his movement would close the border in cooperation with the Egyptian authorities, adding that Cairo has promised to ease the plight of the Palestinians in the Strip by opening the Rafah crossing.
During the talks Hamas officials asked that Egypt provide the Strip with the essential supplies it currently receives through the occupied territories. The Hamas officials made it clear during their talks with Omer Suleiman, Egypt’s chief of intelligence, they did not expect this supply line to be humanitarian assistance but commercial deliveries for which they would pay. Hamas sources said the Egyptians did not reject the proposal and promised to consider the option.
However, senior Fatah officials in Ramallah said that Egypt would be hard put to accept the Hamas proposal because of the opposition of the Palestinian Authority and the United States.
Hamas Prime Minister in the Strip Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that economic ties with Egypt must be strengthened to break free from Israel. “Since the day we were elected [Palestinian national elections February 2006] we have said that we want to progress toward breaking our economic ties with Israel,” he said. He stressed that “Egypt is in a much better position [than Israel] to meet the needs of the Gaza Strip.”
“However, senior Fatah officials in Ramallah said that Egypt would be hard put to accept the Hamas proposal because of the opposition of the Palestinian Authority and the United States.”
Hmmmm…. who on earth is scared of the “Palestinian Authority”??? Besides, neither the PA nor the US has any influence on the ground – Hamas does. There is no way Hamas will agree to the re-imprisonment of the Gazans. They knocked down that wall once, they can do so again.
. There is no way Hamas will agree to the re-imprisonment of the Gazans.
Inshallah!
I’m guessing that Egypt built this wall and wishes to close this border crossing because it is a requisite for receiving US foreign aid.
I’ve seen other blogs where people have said that Egypt built the wall because it didn’t want to deal with Palestinian terrorists but I doubt that’s why it existed in the first place.
Can anyone tell me why this wall existed?
-AA
What do you think of this samsonblinded.org/blog/israel-cannot-blockade-gaza.htm ? Shoher is arguably the most right Israeli today, but he argues Israel should talk to Hamas as Egypt will not maintain the blockade of Gaza.
@alex: interesting piece. putting aside all the usual anti-Arab cliches, the guy has a point when he realizes that Mubarak closing Gaza is not an option. So the Israelis need to either close Gaza themselves, which I thought they would do by now (no matter how insane such an idea might be politically) or talk to Hamas (they could, I suppose, also do nothing, but that would only make things worse).
Talking to Hamas is politically impossible after repeating mantrically that Hamas has to not only recognize Israel as a “Jewish state” (which Hamas will never do) and stop the violence (which Hamas *cannot* do).
The Israelis always screw up in the same manner: they state grandiose and arrogant things, and then when the facts on the ground prove them wrong, they are in a bind as to what to do about it.
You have to see that Gaza is only the proverbial “tip of the iceberg”, its a symptom only. There is no “Gaza problem”. There is a “Israel is a racist state which violates all norms of international behavior and only relies on brute force and which is not willing to accept the humiliation of having to seriously negotiate” – problem.
Of course, from the Israeli perspective the problem is different. They would see the problem as “there still are living Palestinians in Palestine”. As long as they will view the Middle-East problems as an issue of “Palestinian infestation” they will have problems all over, not just in Gaza.
As they say, when your head is in the sand, than your ass is in the air. The Israeli head has been in the sand for so long now that it is hard to see how it could ever come out again. Consequently, the Israeli ass is now the most exposed on the planet.