Hamas, Egypt cooperate in resealing Gaza border; U.S. peace envoy arrives - Haaretz

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Tue., January 29, 2008 Shvat 22, 5768

Israel Time: 01:47 (EST+7)

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Hamas, Egypt cooperate in resealing Gaza border; U.S. peace envoy arrives

By Haaretz Correspondents and Agencies , By Avi Issacharoff and Yuval Azoulay

Tags: Gaza, Egypt, Hamas

Egyptian security forces and Hamas militants strung barbed wire across one of the breaches in the border yesterday, blocking Palestinian traffic between the Gaza Strip and Rafah. It was the first sign that the six-day opening of the Gaza-Sinai frontier may finally be drawing to an end.

A senior Hamas delegation from Gaza is due to travel to Egypt tomorrow to discuss the arrangements of opening the Rafah border crossing.

Six days after Hamas blew holes in the border wall with Egypt to effectively end an Israeli blockade, and which sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the border in a shopping frenzy, authorities in the region were still struggling to come up with a new system to administer the border.

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Meanwhile, pedestrians scoured the nearly empty stores for food and consumer products to take back to the Gaza Strip for fear of an imminent border reclosing.

"I said no Gazan cars with civilian plates can go through, only...trucks," one security guard told a man trying to ferry his Egyptian mother back across the border. "The orders have changed from above."

In the town of El Arish, the Egyptians forced shop owners to keep their stores closed to prevent the Palestinians from buying products. However, numerous Egyptian merchants drove to the Gaza Strip to sell their wares.

Despite the financial windfall of the past few days, Egyptian storekeepers are worried over the continuing flow of Palestinians into their stores, in light of an apparent government decision to halt the resupply shipments.

"Since I opened this shop more than 20 years ago, I haven't seen such a chaotic situation," said Mohammed Barahmah, 60, who owns one of the biggest grocery shops in downtown Rafah near the main crossing point. "If this keeps up, the Egyptians in Rafah will be starving to death."

Meanwhile, a Palestinian teenager was killed and another was wounded by IDF troops during a raid into Bethlehem yesterday.

Kusai al-Afandi, 17, was shot in the stomach when Israeli troops attempted to capture an Islamic Jihad fugitive. The IDF said the boy tried to throw a fire bomb at the soldiers.

An IDF spokeswoman said troops had initially used non-lethal riot dispersal means, but resorted to live fire at the lower bodies of some demonstrators when they endangered the troops by throwing stones and large building blocks.

Eleven Qassam rockets and 18 mortar rounds were fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip since last Thursday, indicating a sharp reduction in rocket fire, compared with some 50 at the beginning of last week. The rocket fire had escalated after the IDF's military operation in Gaza, in which 18 Hamas men were killed including the son of senior Hamas official Mahmoud a-Zahar.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday that the Gaza crossings will remain closed, except for small amounts of fuel and humanitarian aid.

Amos Gilad, head of the political-military bureau at the Defense Ministry, has been holding talks with senior Egyptian officials and demanding the closure of the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Defense officials said that weapons have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip in the last few days.

Meanwhile, a U.S. peace envoy launched his mission yesterday.

Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, a U.S. Air Force general, has been assigned to help the two sides overcome disputes created by noncompliance with the road map peace plan.

Fraser met in Jerusalem with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Barak. He is scheduled to meet today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

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