Last update - 00:00 29/01/2008
Egyptians near Gaza grow tired of influx of Palestinians
By The Associated Press
Egyptian shopkeeper Safwat Hammad's shelves are empty and he is starting to get fed up - but he is just one of many Egyptians increasingly disgruntled Thursday by the unending influx of Palestinians from
Gaza.
For a week, Palestinians have flooded in hundreds of thousands into Egypt
through the breached border separating the country from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, to shop for supplies and stock up on fuel.
Hamas militants blew the border open last Wednesday to release the pressure of a six-month Israeli blockade. Egypt has since been struggling to regain control of it.
On the Egyptian side of the divided border town of Rafah, many gas stations have gone out of fuel and groceries are short on food. The Egyptians, eager at first to make a buck from the Palestinian shopping spree, want the border crisis wrapped up quickly.
Hammad, 26, said he restocked his store twice this week but ran out of items to sell Tuesday.
They are buying everything, he said of the Palestinians. God forbid, they will also buy the air, and we will not be able to breathe.
Egyptian border guards were busy repairing another section of the destroyed Gaza border wall Tuesday, slowing Palestinians in their arrivals. On the Gazan side of Rafah, Hamas forces were managing traffic, stopping at least one car carrying Palestinian civilians and forcing it to turn around.
But even though the cross-border movement was just in the hundreds Tuesday - a trickle compared to previous days- mostly because of the cold, windy weather, it was unclear if Egypt planned to completely halt the crossings.
Two large border breaches remained open - including the ones the guards were repairing. Egypt also deployed several dozen riot police armed with shields and batons at the two remaining openings. Other riot police blocked the Egyptian Rafah's main road and told Palestinian cars to head back to Gaza.
Some disgruntled Egyptians even claimed they were being robbed.
Standing in the middle of a Rafah street in mid-covered sandals, wood collector Khamis Abou-Fares complained to anyone who would listen.
After blinking for a second, I could no longer see my pile of wood, he said.
The Palestinians destroyed our town and now they are stealing from us. Is this the way to return a favor?
Nooreldin el-Goneus, 25, said some Palestinians offered to buy the sheep he was selling to get cash for his upcoming wedding, but he declined because their offer wasn't good enough. Half an hour later, his flock was gone from outside his home. He claimed his brother saw some Palestinians load his sheep onto their truck.
We took you (Palestinians) in and gave you everything we had, and now you are slapping us with those thefts, he lamented.
Some form of agreement on who controls the border could come either late
Tuesday or Wednesday when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a Hamas
delegation hold separate meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo. Jittery about the border chaos, Egypt has invited Abbas and his rival Hamas movement to the talks to end the weeklong crisis.
Abbas has ruled from the West Bank since Hamas militants overran his forces and seized control of Gaza last June. Abbas still claims authority over Gaza, but in reality wields no influence there.
Egypt and other Arab countries oppose any future Hamas control over the
frontier and have called for a return to a 2005 international border
monitoring agreement that excludes the Islamist organization from any kind of role.
Hamas, however, insists on having a say in the border administration. The
militants got a boost from the Rafah breach among Gazans, who have been sealed off from the outside world for the past two years.
Some Palestinians said Egyptian security officers in El-Arish were telling them to leave and others complained that police in the coastal city were surrounding their cars and banging on them with sticks, demanding they go back to Gaza. Police would not confirm these allegations.
Unlike Hammad, Mamdouh al-Teeh was not unhappy with the Palestinians.
God bless Egypt for keeping this open, said the Sinai resident, as he was
emptying his trucks of diesel and waterpipes tobacco. He added he hoped the border would never shut because of the great business he had in the past week.
On the Gaza side of Rafah, Gazan Mohammed Abu el-Kheir criticized Egypt for attempting to close the breaches. Followers of America and Israel. You are only closing the border because of the pressure, he said.
Another Gazan, Attef Abdul-Magid, said Egyptian security forces stopped him in a small town between El-Arish and Rafah and made him board a bus carrying other Palestinians heading back to Rafah.
In Gazan Rafah, about 50 Hamas lawmakers and intellectuals staged a rally
Tuesday to thank Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for allowing the
Palestinians to cross the border. But deputy Parliament Speaker Ahmed Bahar also urged Egypt to allow Gazans to travel outside of Egypt and asked Palestinians to work with Egyptian security officials.
We call on our people to cooperate with Egyptian security, whose work we
appreciate, and to exhibit discipline and to respond to their orders in order to organize the exit and entry along the border, Bahar said.