 Divided by a twist of history 26 years ago, this remote town straddling the Gaza-Egypt border has been reunited in just as haphazard a fashion. After the towering border wall slicing through Rafah was toppled earlier this week, long-separated relatives, friends and even former soccer buddies just had to walk a few yards to embrace and reminisce.
| Awww. My heart just melted. It's running down my leg. |
Some even dared to make plans for an uncertain future: One large Palestinian clan quickly married off four women to close relatives on the Egyptian side. "How can we leave the other side? We were always one place," said Kamal al-Nahal, 40, an uncle of one of the brides.
| Because it's in two different countries? |
But almost three decades of separation have also produced marked differences in customs, building styles and dialect. Al-Nahal said he wasn't exactly impressed with Egyptian Rafah which, with mudbrick buildings and unpaved streets, has more of a village feel than its larger, bustling counterpart of multistory apartment buildings on the Gaza side. About 40,000 people live on the Egyptian side and about 200,000 in Gaza's Rafah, which includes both the original town and an adjacent refugee camp. Those on the Egyptian side are mostly of Palestinian origin, but their Arabic often has more of an Egyptian dialect.
| It's kind of a gutteral "y'all" kinda thing. |
Rafah was bisected in 1982 to accommodate land claims negotiated as part of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. While suddenly holding different citizenship, residents of both sectors could cross the border with relative ease for several years.
However, travel became increasingly difficult as Israeli-Palestinian fighting intensified. During the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 2000, Gazan Rafah became one of the bloodiest flashpoints of violence, with gunmen often exchanging fire with Israeli troops patrolling the Gaza-Egypt border.
| Damn those Israeli troops, picking on those poor gunmen! And they weren't doin' nuttin', just mindin' their own bidnid! |
Israeli troops razed hundreds of Rafah homes to widen the patrol road and erected a tall wall — the one toppled Wednesday — as cover against ambushes.
"Hokay, Moshe! Drop the houses! Ari, how's that wall comin'?"
"I need more bricks!" |
The border breach was engineered by the Islamic militant Hamas to pressure Egypt to negotiate new border arrangements. Both Israel and Egypt had kept Gaza largely sealed in the past two years, especially since Hamas violently seized the territory in June. At least 38 members of the Egyptian security forces have been hurt in confrontations on the border in recent days, Egypt said. On Saturday, Egyptian riot police and armored vehicles blocked Gazan cars from moving beyond Egyptian Rafah, but the border remained otherwise open. |