Egyptian-Palestinian border wall re-built but Mubarak pledges to continue food supplies to Gaza Strip

Hamas Doesn't Reject Return of Abbas' Gaurds to Rafah Crossing

Cairo, February 1, 2008 (RNA) –

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, said that the Abass guards can return to operate the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

"Nothing prevents us from accepting the return of the people that had worked at the border crossing in the past, and discussing with them their role, while making use of their experience," Al-Zahar said.

The Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmoud Abbas says it intends to respect the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access reached with Israel.

The agreement requires European monitors to be at Rafah in order for the border crossing to open, the condition which Hamas rejects.

The flaw in the agreement that Hamas see is that Israel has the indirect power to open and close the border.

Hamas never accepted such an agreement reached between Abbas and Israel. Its acceptance is due to the blockade that Gaza is experiencing.

"At the same time, there could also be representatives of the Palestinian Authority in Rafah, in order to prevent Israel from having any direct role in the running of the border," said Al-Zahar.

Egyptian authorities shore up Egypt-Gaza border

Date: 01 / 02 / 2008 Time: 12:21

Bethlehem – Ma'an –

The toppled Egypt-Gaza border wall will be closed in the next few hours, according to an Egyptian security source.

Twenty-six truck-loads of equipment have arrived at the border and construction workers are hurrying to shore up the openings in the wall.

An official source told the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Ahram that the Egyptians are taking all possible steps to prevent a further breach of the border and Egyptian security services are resuming control.

Meanwhile, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has pledged that food supplies will be allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip from Egypt, saying that Egypt will not allow the Palestinian people to go hungry but at the same time Egyptian sovereignty must be preserved.

For the tenth consecutive day Gazans flooded into Egyptian border towns on Friday to stock up on supplies, made scarce by the Israeli-imposed blockade.

Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have crossed into Egypt since masked Palestinian fighters destroyed a portion of the border wall between Egypt and the Gaza Strip using explosives on January 23.

Egyptian security services are only allowing Palestinians to pass through one of the gaps in the border wall. They have erected barbed wire to stop people and vehicles from crossing through other openings in the toppled wall.

On Sunday, Egyptian security forces ordered shops to close in the city of Al-Arish, bordering the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to stem the flow of Palestinians from Gaza crossing into Egypt. However shops in the Egyptian city of Rafah are open to Palestinians.

Hundreds of Gazan students, patients and businesspeople and workers are continuing their sit-in in front of the Egyptian interior ministry's offices in the Sinai region. They are demanding that Egyptian authorities let them pass to the international airport in Cairo so they can fly to their destinations abroad.

Most of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million residents had been trapped inside the Gaza Strip since Israel closed the Gaza Strip's border crossings in June, following the Hamas takeover.

Israeli radio announced on Friday that the Israeli authorities will open the Karni crossing for two days to allow supplies of food, animal fodder and medicines, sent by international relief organizations into the Gaza Strip.

Egypt Prevents Gaza Car Traffic to Cross Borderline

Rafah, February 1, 2008 (Ramattan, RNA) –

Egyptian security officials blocked car traffic from Gaza from entering the country but were still allowing Palestinians to enter on foot.

As Egypt-planned talks with rival Palestinian factions crumbled, Gazans worried that Egypt, frustrated with no solution in view to the border crisis, will soon seal the breached boundary.

Empty stores, seas of mud and torrential rains kept most Palestinians away from the increasingly grim surroundings of divided Rafah’s Egyptian side and only a few dozen braved the foul weather Thursday to cross the border.

A tight security cordon remained in place around the town to keep Palestinians from entering into the rest of Egypt, though security officials announced that at least 15 Palestinians have been caught over the past few days in the nearby town of El-Arish and in other remote parts of the Sinai desert carrying weapons and explosives.

The arrests embody Egyptian fears that some of the strife and radicalism in Gaza may leak into Egypt across the open border, though they hesitate to close the frontier outright in fear of the outcry over the plight of Palestinians blockaded inside.

There were definite signs by Thursday, however, that Egyptian patience with the situation was wearing thin. In the wind-swept no man’s land in the divided town of Rafah, Egyptian guards used sticks to beat the trunk of a white pickup with empty cooking gas canisters that tried to drive it into Egypt.

Gazans were increasingly concerned the shopping bonanza would soon be over and the border resealed.

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