Tuesday December 22, 2009 10:10 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Thousands of Palestinians protested on Monday at the Salahuddin Gate area, near the border with Egypt, against the Iron Wall Egypt is installing with American support and supervision along its border with Gaza.

The protest was called for by the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. Egyptian troops were intensively deployed along the border.

Hamas called for the protest on Sunday and asked its members and supporters to gather along the Rafah Border Terminal to protest the new Iron Wall.

Egypt started the installation of the Iron Wall which also goes deep underground to block the tunnels used for smuggling goods into the besieged coastal region.

Hamas said that this wall is a “wall of injustice and oppression”, and added that it would organize protests against it and against the unjust siege.

The dissolved Hamas-led government in Gaza expressed concern over the Egyptian decision, and said that it intends to contact the Egyptian government to protest it.

The installation of the wall caused further tension along the border between Gaza and Egypt, and also led to sporadic exchanges of fire between Palestinian fighters and Egyptian border policemen.

Egypt intends to install the 10km (6.21 miles) wall along its border with Gaza; its depth will be 30 meters (100 feet).

Egypt defended its decision and said that it is part of its sovereignty, and that the wall also aims at protecting the country from security threats.

Hamas spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri, said that this wall is unjustifiable, and demanded Egypt to immediately halt the construction.

Abu Zuhri added that this wall will strangle the residents and would cause a real catastrophe in the coastal region.

Khaled Mashal, head of the Hamas Political Bureau in Syria, stated that this wall is “a new war against the resistance in Gaza”.

In an interview with the Al Aqsa TV, Mashal added that UNRWA Commissioner, Karen Abu Zeid, described the Wall as more dangerous that the Bar Lev Line.

The Bar Lev line was constructed by Israel along the eastern coast of the Suez Canal in Egypt after the Israeli army occupied the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 six-day war.

Bahr: The steel wall is part of the mass punishment policy imposed on Gaza

[ 22/12/2009 - 05:09 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Dr. Ahmed Bahr, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), stated Tuesday that the building of the steel wall on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders is part of the policy of mass punishment imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Bahr told a news conference held in his office that this wall gives negative indicators about intentions to wage a new war on Gaza.

He said that the construction of this wall contradicts the honorable positions of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who had publicly declared that he would not starve the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The deputy speaker pointed out that the international community should oblige the besieging parties to respect the fourth Geneva convention and end their mass punishment against Gaza people, calling for an emergency parliamentary session to discuss the implications of building this wall.

For its part, the Palestinian opposition factions strongly denounced on Tuesday the Egyptian decision to build a steel wall on its borders with Gaza, stressing that this move is a dangerous sign of intentions to tighten the blockade on Gaza.

In a news conference, the factions said that the failure of Arab and Muslim countries to fulfil its pledges to break the siege encouraged the besieging parties to look for other tools and mechanisms to tighten it.

The factions called on the Egyptian government to immediately stop this serious move which shocked the Palestinian people, warning that tightening the siege on Gaza would not serve the Egyptian national security at all, but on the contrary, the Palestinian people would not accept such position and stay idle watching themselves die slowly.

PLC to hold emergency session on Egypt’s steel wall in Gaza today

[ 23/12/2009 - 11:04 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

The Palestinian legislative council (PLC) is expected to hold Wednesday an emergency session in Gaza city to discuss the serious implications of the steel wall being built on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders.

Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the PLC, invited all Palestinian lawmakers to attend this session to discuss extensively the development and the catastrophic risks of building the steel wall and to take decisions in this regard.

The issue of this wall will be the only topic on the agenda of this emergency meeting to be held in Rashad Shawa cultural center in Gaza city.

For its part, the Islamic action front party in Jordan on Tuesday condemned the Egyptian steel wall as a big crime, considering the inhumane siege on Gaza a shame on the international community.

Director of the Arab and Islamic affairs in the party Mohamed Al-Bazoor said that Egypt was expected to break the siege on Gaza people and open its crossings and not to build a metal wall to block the arrival of food, medicines and basic supplies into Gaza.

Bazoor stressed that the passive attitude of the international community toward the blockade imposed on more than one and a half million humans in the largest prison in the world is a historical precedent.

The Jordanian party official underlined that Gaza did not and would not threaten the Egyptian security, but on the contrary, its people are considered the first defense line of Egypt and the Arab nation against the expansionist Israeli occupation, which had previously occupied Egyptian lands and still poses as a strategic threat to it and the whole Arab world.

“It would be fair if Egypt called a spade a spade and did not invent imaginary enemies and ignore the real ones,” the party official highlighted.