RAFAH, Gaza Strip, 24 January 2008 — Tens of thousands of Gazans entered Egypt after holes were blown in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt. About 2 a.m. yesterday, loud explosions broke the silence of Rafah, a town that straddles the frontier.
Residents said militants set off explosions that demolished about 200 meters of the now-rusting, 6-meter-high dividing wall erected by Israel in 2004, a year before it pulled troops and settlers from the territory. A border terminal in Rafah, once an important avenue to the outside world for Gazans, has been largely closed since Hamas Islamists opposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ peace efforts with Israel took over the Gaza Strip in June.
The flood of people into the Egyptian part of Rafah — some on donkey carts and carrying bags to fill with food items and essential consumer goods — forced Israel into a delicate diplomatic balancing act with its first Arab peace partner. “We expect the Egyptians will solve the problem,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said, avoiding any criticism of the Jewish state’s southern neighbor which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said authorities planned to “contain” the situation at Rafah and were holding inter-agency consultations. “You have to deal with this situation very carefully with the usual understanding of the suffering of the Palestinian people, who have gone through a long ordeal,” he said. Israel resumed fuel supplies to Gaza’s main power plant on Tuesday, offering limited respite from the blockade that had plunged much of the territory into darkness. The European Union and international agencies have called the closure collective punishment on Gaza’s 1.5 million people.
“The bakeries are not working and there are difficulties in getting the things we need,” said a 42-year-old Gazan housewife who crossed the border with two of her children. “I came to buy milk for my children and to get medicine for diabetes.”
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Israel has no intention of causing a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, but it would deny Palestinians in the territory “luxuries” as long as rocket attacks continued. Blowing up the wall came hours after hundreds of Hamas supporters, including women, gathered at the gate of the Rafah crossing to protest the ongoing blockade.
They called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to open the crossing between Egypt and Gaza. The incident turned violent, with around 60 people being injured.
On Friday, Israel closed its border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, preventing fuel supplies to petrol stations and Gaza’s only power plant. Humanitarian aid shipments were also prevented from entering the strip. On Tuesday, Israel allowed five trucks of fuel supplies to enter Gaza, returning electricity to several areas that had been dark for two consecutive days.
In a related development, a member of Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed and four others injured early yesterday when the Israeli army entered the southern Gaza Strip, Hamas and medical source said. The Israeli army confirmed that a special forces unit had entered the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, conducting an arrest operation in the area. Palestinian militants opened fire on the troops who returned fire, killing one of the militants. Residents living in the area said that more than 20 Palestinians were arrested and taken away to an unknown destination.
— With additional input from agencies
