Palestinian official: Egypt accepts plan to reopen Rafah - Summary
Posted on 2008-01-27
Palestinian official: Egypt accepts plan to reopen Rafah - Summary | ||||||||||
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The US-brokered deal allows the terminal to operate with the Palestinian Presidential Guard controlling the Palestinian side, and European Union observers acting as a third party. After a meeting Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said his side had asked for control over the border. Olmert's office had no comment on whether Israel would agree to the plan, but spokesman David Baker said the Palestinian leader was expected to discuss the border chaos with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak in Cairo on Wednesday, and so it was not talked about at length in Jerusalem. The Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip said Sunday however that the previous Rafah crossing deal is void, and called for a new agreement to be negotiated. "Hamas would like to affirm its rejection of returning to the Rafah crossing agreement because it has become part of the past and the Palestinians will not accept going back to the past," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said. "We need a pure Palestinian-Egyptian passage with new standards," he said, and called for a three-way meeting between Egypt, Hamas and the PA or "a mutual meeting between Hamas and Cairo if President Abbas kept rejecting talks with Hamas." Rafah terminal has been closed since mid June 2007, when Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip routed forces loyal to Abbas and assumed full security control of the salient. Israel reacted to the Hamas takeover by closing crossing points into the Strip, except for the passage of limited humanitarian aid, and tightening a blockade on the salient first imposed in June 2006 after Gaza-based militants staged a cross-border raid and snatched an Israeli soldier, who is still being held captive. Israel intensified the blockade even further around 10 days ago, in response to a dramatic upsurge in the number of rockets and mortars fired from the Strip at adjacent Israeli towns and villages. On Wednesday, Hamas militants blew huge holes in the concrete and metal border fence, prompting hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flood through the breach and mostly head for al-Arish, 50 kilometres distant, to stock up with supplies made scarce by the Israeli blockade. Thousands were still pouring into Egypt on Sunday, although Egyptian authorities had ordered shopkeepers in al-Arish to shut their stores and hotels to refuse accommodation to Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel fears that militants will take advantage of the now-porous border to smuggle more weapons into Gaza or will exit the Strip via Rafah and infiltrate into Israel from the Sinai peninsula south of the Strip, and has started to beef up security along its border with Egypt. Olmert promised Abbas at their meeting that Israel would resume the flow of humanitarian aid and fuel to the Strip, after they were shut off in wake of the rocket and mortar upsurge between January 15 to 17, when Gaza-based militants launched around 130 projectiles at southern Israel. Israel's intensification of the blockade, and especially the severance of fuel supplies caused an international outcry and although fuel supplies were resumed on a limited basis last week, on Sunday Israel announced it will resume fuel shipments. The State, replying to a petition filed by human rights groups against against the blockade, told the High Court that it would renew the fuel supplies but warned that they could be cut off again if the rocket fire continued. |
