Rafah/Gaza City - Palestinian militants blew dozens of holes
in the Gaza Strip-Egypt border fence Wednesday, prompting hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians to pour through the breach and stream into
Egyptian to stock up with supplies made scarce by a suffocating
Israeli siege of the salient.
The United Nations estimated in the mid-afternoon that some
350,000 Gazans had entered Egypt through the dozens of gaps blown in
a wall and cut into barbed wire - witnesses said they heard as many
as 17 explosions, and militants also brought up bulldozers to destroy
the concrete border wall - in the 10 or so hours since the border was
first holed.
Palestinian estimates put the number entering Egypt even higher,
at about half a million.
Egyptian border guards did nothing to prevent the flow of people
from making the approximately 50 kilometre journey to the Sinai town
of al-Arish to buy food, fuel and other scarce supplies, including
cigarettes.
President Hosni Mubarak said he allowed Palestinians to cross into
Egypt Wednesday to 'to eat and buy food provisions then return home
as long as they do not carry arms.'
Israel, alarmed that militants and weapons could enter the Strip
through the now-porous border, said it expected Egypt to 'solve the
problem' of the breached border, with a foreign ministry statement
noting that 'it is the responsibility of Egypt to ensure that the
border operates properly, according to signed agreements.'
On Wednesday, most of the Palestinians crossing back into the
Strip were carrying much-needed provisions which had been in short
supply throughout ught the months of the Israel siege.
The streets of al-Arish, as well as the Egyptian side of the
divided border town of Rafah and nearby Sheikh Zweid, were filled
with people buying what they needed, while Gazans from places as far
from Rafah as Beit Hanoun, on the northern edge of the Strip, were
also also making their way to the border, using whatever transport
they could find.
Grocery shops and pharmacies in Rafah and al-Arish were reported
to be running out of stock and queues were building up outside petrol
stations.
The Egyptian authorities had reportedly closed the Suez Canal
bridge, known as the Mubarak peace bridge, which links the Sinai
peninsula to mainland Egypt.
The move was aimed at keeping Palestinians in the Sinai Peninsula
and stopping them from streaming into other parts of Egypt,
particularly Cairo.
'I am very happy to be in Arish for the first time. I am here to
buy goods and food supplies for my family,' said Marwan Khalid, a
student from Rafah.
'As soon as I heard about the opening of the border I hurried to
come to Egypt. I have relatives in Arish. I will buy food and
medicines. Then I am going home,' said Oum Salah, a housewife from
Khan Younis.
A Hamas statement said that what happened at the border was 'a
reflection of the level of strain caused by the siege, the pressure
of the closure of the crossing points, which have taken our people to
the point of an irreversible explosion.'
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas in
Ramallah, said Israel was responsible for the events on the border
because of the 'unacceptable siege.'
Israel had first closed the Gaza border crossings in June 2006,
after militants from the Strip staged a cross-border raid and
snatched an Israeli soldier, who is still being held somewhere in the
enclave.
The siege of Gaza was intensified in June last year, when Hamas
gunmen routed forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas to seize
complete security control of the Strip, and it was tightened even
further last week after an upsurge in rockets and mortar attacks form
the salient, with more than 130 projectiles launched at southern
Israel over three days.
On Tuesday morning, Israel reopened two of its border crossings
with the Gaza Strip to humanitarian aid and diesel fuel after nearly
four days of a total lock-down.
The diesel was enough to keep Gaza's only local power plant
running for one week, as well as generators used in hospitals.
But Israel has said it will keep a tight grip on the Strip until
the rocket attacks end.
At least 60 people were injured in clashes Tuesday between and
thousands of Hamas supporters, many of them women, protesting on the
Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing, and Egyptian security forces
who used water cannons and clubs to beat back the crowd trying to
break through the border, and then firing a volley of live ammunition
at the crowd, which fled.
One Palestinian militant was also seen firing his Kalashnikov over
the heads of the civilian protesters at the Egyptian security forces.
Five of the wounded were injured by the live ammunition, including
a Palestinian woman in critical condition after being shot in the
head.
The Hamas-organized demonstrations began at the Rafah crossing
point on Monday, with protesters calling for the border to be opened
to allow Palestinian patients into Egypt for medical treatment.
Since Israel tightened the closure Friday, the rocket attacks have
decreased somewhat, but on Tuesday militants still launched some 22
Gaza-made al-Quds and Nasser rockets and mortars from the Strip at
Israeli towns and villages, a military spokeswoman said.
Gaza's power plant shut down for nearly 40 hours from Sunday
evening, plunging some 800,000 Palestinians in Gaza City and its
suburbs into darkness until the new diesel supplies arrived Tuesday.
An Israeli government spokesman, Yariv Ovadiah, confirmed Israel
was now following a new policy, under which humanitarian aid and fuel
would be allowed into Gaza periodically to avoid a humanitarian
crisis, but in minimal amounts.
Before last week's surge in rocket attacks, Israel opened its
border crossings with Gaza to larger amounts of basic necessities
which 'allowed a much more normal life, but here we are trying to
increase the pressure,' Ovadiah said.
'We don't want to punish the Palestinian people,' he told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa. 'On the other hand we are still suffering rocket
attacks every day. The situation is unbearable.'
Human rights groups, however, have condemned the closure as
collective punishment.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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