Palestinians Rally at Rafah Crossing, Urging Egypt to Open Border with Gaza

Hundreds rally at Rafah, urging Egypt to open border with Gaza

Date: 10 / 08 / 2008 Time: 15:22
Gaza – Ma’an –

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in front of the Rafah terminal on Sunday urging Egypt to open its border with the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to the Hamas-organized rally, Ahmad Bahar, the acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) appealed to Egyptian President Hossni Mubarak to open the crossing and end the blockade of Gaza immediately.

Bahar recalled of a previous remark by Mubarak in which he said, “we won’t let Palestinians starve.”

Ahead of the protest, Egypt sent 500 riot police to its side of the border fearing that Palestinians might storm the crossing.

Bahar also criticized Egypt for refusing to allow a delegation of PLC deputies through the crossing.

“We received an invitation a few days ago from Arab parliaments to carry out a tour in order to clarify the point of view and to defend Palestinians' rights, but we were surprised when Egyptian prevented to this delegation from crossing," he said.

Bahar added, “Closing the crossings and the blockade came in retaliation for not responding to Quartet’s conditions [on Hamas] of recognizing Israel and because Palestinians adhered to their principles.”

He called on Arab health ministers, especially the Egyptian health minister consider the plight of besieged Gazans, "who are dying meters away from Rafah crossing.”

Bahar appealed specifically to Arab and Islamic nations to end the blockade.

The Rafah border has been closed since June 2007, when Israel began a blockade of the Gaza Strip following Hamas' takeover of the territory. Under pressure from Israel, Egypt has kept the border sealed.

In January, Palestinians undermined the border wall with explosives, then poured across the border by the tens of thousands. The mass act of disobedience followed a period of severe closure in which Israel blocked supplies of fuel, food, and medicine.

According to the terms of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that went into effect in June, Israel and Hamas were to negotiate a plan to open the Rafah crossing, but those talks stalled in July.

In 2005 Israel agreed to allow Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to administer the crossing with a delegation of European observers tasked with monitoring the border. Because the European team was based in Israel, the Israeli government maintained the power to open and close the crossing simply by preventing the Europeans from reaching Rafah.

41 days after premature labour at Erez crossing, Palestinian gives birth to quadruplets in Israel

Date: 10 / 08 / 2008 Time: 17:26
Ramallah – Ma'an –

Khawla Jamal Hamdan, a Palestinian police captain, gave birth to quadruplets - two boys and two girls, on Friday in Barzilai hospital in the southern Israel city of Ashkelon.

Khawla phoned the police department to inform them that she was fine, after having gone into early labout at Erez crossing over a month ago.

Thirty-one-year-old Hamdan is originally a resident of the West Bank who moved to the Gaza Strip five years ago to be with her husband.

The new mother has been in the Barzilai hospital for more than forty one days. She went into premature labour at the Erez crossing as she set out for a medical appointment in her home town of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Since admitted to the Israeli hospital only her mother was permitted a short one day visit.

On Friday the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that Hamdan was forced to sign a declaration that she would not return to Gaza after receiving services in the Israeli Hospital. The paper quoted her as saying "I signed [the paper promising not to return to Gaza]. At that moment all I could think about was getting to a hospital," she said Thursday. "Now he can't be with me and the children, and we cannot go to him."

Hamdan's husband, Issam, is also reported to have been denied entry into Israel to be with is wife and children .

Medical sources confirmed the four infants are in stable condition, according to the Palestinian police department in Ramallah.

Hamdan underwent in vitro fertilization in January 2008 at the Al-Basma specialist clinic in Gaza.

“I suffered from diabetes, hypertension and anemia during the first months of pregnancy when physicians advised me to leave Gaza and seek treatment back in the West Bank. When I went to the civil liaison office and asked to leave the Gaza Strip they [Israeli officials] allowed me to go to my family there on 3 July 2008." She said that although she requested permission for her husband to accompany her, permission was refused.

When Hamdan arrived to Erez crossing, she felt intense labour pains and was transferred to the near by Barzilai hospital by ambulance. She stayed under intensive care a month and had a cesarean section to deliver the quadruplets.

The four infants were placed into incubators and are under intensive care. They are all in stable condition.

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