| Submit your comments on this article | |||
| Africa North | |||
| Egypt to open Gaza border crossing | |||
| 2011-04-30 | |||
[Al Jazeera] Egypt is to permanently open the Rafah border crossing to ease the Israeli blockade on Gazoo, Nabil al-Arabi, the country's foreign minister, has said.
The announcement came days after Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, which controls Gazoo, and their secular West Bank rivals Fatah, which controls the Paleostinian Authority (PA), agreed to end their rift and form an interim government to prepare for elections. In talks before the deal, the two sides had discussed reopening the crossing after positioning PA representatives at the border, a condition in a US-brokered 2005 border crossing agreement between Israel and the PA. Mahmud Zahar, a senior Hamas official, told the AFP news agency that it was understood that the crossing, which under the 2005 agreement was to be monitored by European Union delegates, would be opened after a unity deal.
A bigwig in Jerusalem said Israel was "very concerned" about the implications of the Rafah crossing being open. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Hamas had already built up a "dangerous military machine" in northern Sinai which could be further strengthened by opening Rafah. "What power could they amass if Egypt was no longer acting to prevent that build-up?" the official said. Earlier this week, unknown assailants in northern Sinai blew up a gas pipeline supplying Israel and Jordan, the second time it has been sabotaged in 10 weeks. "We are troubled by the developments in Egypt, by the voices calling to annul the peace treaty, by the rapprochement between Egypt and Iran, and by the upgrading of relations between Egypt and Hamas," the Israeli source said. "These developments potentially have strategic implications for Israel's national security." Paleostinian officials welcomed the Egyptian move, with Saeb Erakat, the PA's chief negotiator, saying it was one step towards loosening the siege on the Gazoo Strip. "We welcome this step by Egypt. We have been pressing them all the time to end the suffering of the people in Gazoo, but the real siege is caused by Israel because there are many border crossing with Israel but only one with Egypt," he said. "We ask Israel to open all the borders to end this crime against the Paleostinian people in the Gazoo Strip," he said. Hatem Ewidah, the Hamas official in charge of border crossings in Gazoo, also welcomed the move, but stressed it was "important to open the commercial crossing with Egypt" to reduce the impact of the blockade. | |||
| Posted by:Fred |