Last update - 00:00 31/01/2008
Egypt blocks Gaza cars from Sinai, pedestrians still entering
By The Associated Press
Egyptian border guards moved Thursday to prevent all car traffic from entering the country from the Gaza Strip, but still allowed hundreds of Palestinians in on foot.
The development reflected Egypt's intentions to contain the influx from the breached boundary, but worries grew among the Gazans that the Egyptians could soon completely seal the border.
On the wind-swept no man's land in the divided town of Rafah, Egyptian guards used sticks to beat the trunk of a white pickup with empty cooking gas canisters that tried to drive it into Egypt. The truck's Palestinian driver Hazem Abou Shanab spread his hands in dismay.
"I only wanted to go fill up my canisters, I don't want to go back to Gaza without gas," Shanab said, but the guards wouldn't let him through.
Sporadic gunshots were heard coming from inside Gaza but it was not immediately clear who was shooting in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip.
A young bearded man, likely from Hamas' security, in a raincoat and with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, said the militia was told Wednesday night not to let Palestinians into Egypt anymore.
The Egyptians meanwhile, were allowing vehicles with Egyptian car-plates back from Gaza. Since Hamas blew up the border wall over a week ago setting off the flood of Gazans eager to stock up on supplies and necessities here, Egyptian traders had also driven into the strip to sell their merchandize there.
But Gazans were increasingly concerned the shopping bonanza would soon be over and the border resealed.
"What is happening," a veiled Palestinian woman, Salima, in mid-50s, asked the Egyptian guards. They ignored her but one slightly nodded. "When are you going to close the border?" she asked.
Heavy rain battered the area earlier Thursday. A Palestinian man stood near a power pole, pointing to a dead goat that had been electrocuted next to it, and warning people not to touch it.
Egypt has worked hard to keep Palestinians bottled up near the border since hundreds of thousands poured across after last week's breach. The Palestinians are continuously stopped at checkpoints, and most make it no farther than the divided Rafah or El-Arish, about 60 kilometers away.
But some Palestinians, and perhaps also some weapons from Gaza, have made to other parts of Egypt, including Cairo. This stepped up Egyptian concerns that Gazans, if not contained in the border area, could become a problem for the rest of the country.
Israel has warned its citizens against visiting the beach resorts of Sinai, the vast desert peninsula between the Gaza border and Cairo.
In Cairo meanwhile, the Syria-based radical Hamas leader Khaled Meshal was expected to talk with Egyptian officials, about the border crisis Thursday. The militant group is seeking to return to the political stage and maintain its influence on the frontier, after it wrestled control of Gaza in clashes last June with their bitter rival, the Palestinian Fatah.
But it was unclear what Hamas could achieve in the talks, after moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made it clear during a visit to Cairo Wednesday he will not be pressured into working with them. Abbas categorically refused to talk with Hamas until it recognizes the 2005 international border agreement and repudiated the summer coup that brought it to power in the strip.
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