JERUSALEM, 29 July 2004 — Rights groups and Palestinian residents stranded on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza filed a petition to the Israeli high court yesterday to press for the lifting of security restrictions that would allow the return of some 2,500 Palestinians.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, together with Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights and Gaza Community Mental Health Program said in a statement sent to AFP that those stranded included some 1,000 people who were returning from medical treatment, pregnant women, elderly people or children.
The petitioners said some Palestinians had been waiting for more than two weeks owing to the almost complete sealing of the Israeli-controlled Rafah border since July 10. The crossing has been open for just two days in that period.
Palestinian Negotiations Minister Saeb Erekat, meanwhile, appealed to the international community to help resolve the crisis.
“We asked the US administration and the European Union to help put an end to this human rights violation ... and secure the return of thousands of Palestinians stranded on Egypt’s side of the border in Rafah to Gaza,” he told AFP.
Palestinian security sources in Gaza said 3,000 Palestinians were stuck at the Rafah border crossing — the only point of passage between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli authorities said that they closed the crossing for fear of militant attacks but had offered alternatives.
“This has created a situation in which people returning from Egypt to Gaza, many after having undergone medical treatment, are unable to return home,” the rights groups said in their statement. “They are also unable to return to Egypt because of monetary problems.
“These people severely lack basic supplies such as medicines, food and water. The people are waiting in a small confined waiting area. From testimonies received by Al-Mezan Center and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the situation is dire.”
The petitioners said that even though the 2,500 were stuck on Egypt’s side of the border, Israel had an obligation to attend to their humanitarian needs since it had decided to close the border.
Cairo, meanwhile, said that talks were under way with Israel on the fate of the stranded Palestinians. “Egypt sees that the closure of the crossing is causing humanitarian problems and this matter is being addressed with the Israeli side,” said presidential spokesman Maged Abdul Fatah in Cairo.
Abul Fatah said that Israel claimed the closure was prompted by intelligence that a tunnel under the crossing was packed with explosives and could be blown up at any time. The Egyptian Red Crescent has reportedly provided shelter, but water and sanitation problems remain.
Israel has proposed opening an alternative crossing point 70 kilometers southeast of Rafah at Nissanit in southern Israel and evacuate the stranded Palestinians by bus but says that the Palestinian Authority has refused such a solution.
The rights group in their statement also slammed the Israeli proposal, which they say would include the ferrying of people by buses, with only five vehicles a day.
“Being that over 2,500 people are stranded, this solution is not truly an option,” it said, urging Israel to reopen the border or find viable alternatives.
Meanwhile, gunmen and activists from a besieged Gaza border town blocked off the main road leading to Israel yesterday, shooting in the air to stop vehicles and vowing not to let any Palestinian Authority officials through.
Accusing the Palestinian Authority of ignoring humanitarian needs in the sealed off town of Beit Hanoun, the gunmen blocked roads with mounds of earth and erected a white protest tent.
It was the latest show of power by gunmen in the Gaza Strip, which has seen a surge in Palestinian unrest.
Last week, gunmen kidnapped local tourists and foreigners and burned down police stations in protest at corruption in the Palestinian Authority.
This time, the gunmen were protesting at what appeared to be the Palestinian Authority’s failure to get Israel to lift a siege of Beit Hanoun, imposed after rocket fire killed two Israelis.
At least 16 Palestinians, eight of them militants, have been killed since the siege began. “No official can go to Israel or go from Israel to Gaza,” said Muhanna Shabat, a protest organizer. “Only humanitarian cases can pass.”
As he spoke, gunmen shot in the air over a bulldozer approaching the roadblock as the Palestinian driver’s small son looked on in horror. They later tried to drag the driver off the bulldozer, and beat on a nearby car with clubs.
Organizers said they had stopped several hundred people and several officials traveling on the road. But the road was occasionally opened to let cars and people through for “humanitarian reasons”.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it had warned Israel of a humanitarian crisis in Beit Hanoun, where residents complain of lack of food and medicine inside the town of roughly 30,000 people.
“Beit Hanoun used to be a beautiful place. Now it is a desert,” said activist Hatim Wahdan. “All we are asking for is milk and medicine,” he said.
Protest organizers said they had turned away two Palestinian ministers, who denied they were stopped.
One said they had taken an alternative route to avoid the protesters. An Israeli Army spokesman said the army had seen “no significant change” in traffic through the main Erez crossing that links Gaza and Israel.
In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers dynamited a four-story home owned by a militant, partially damaging nearby buildings.
Human rights groups and Palestinians have condemned the Israeli practice of demolishing homes as collective punishment.
