350,000 Palestinians cross into Egypt "to buy food"

Exclusive: Hamas 'spent months cutting through Gaza wall in secret operation'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3238615.ece

As tens of thousands of Palestinians clambered back and forth between the Gaza strip and Egypt today, details emerged of the audacious operation that brought down a hated border wall and handed the Islamist group Hamas what might be its greatest propaganda coup.

Hamas, which took control of the coastal territory last June after a stand-off with Fatah, has denied that its men set off the explosions that brought down as much as two-thirds of the 12-km wall in the early hours.

But a Hamas border guard interviewed by The Times at the border today admitted that the Islamist group was responsible and had been involved for months in slicing through the heavy metal wall using oxy-acetylene cutting torches.

That meant that when the explosive charges were set off in 17 different locations after midnight last night the 40ft wall came tumbling down, leaving it lying like a broken concertina down the middle of no-man's land as an estimated 350,000 Gazans flooded into Egypt.

Asked whether he had reported it to the government, he replied: "It was the government that was doing this. Who would I report it to?"

Abu Usama, who normally works from a small guard cabin in no-man's land, added: "Last night we were told to keep away from the wall. We were ordered to stay away because they were going to break the blockade."

As Gazans flooded into Egypt, the strip's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, called for an urgent meeting with his rivals in Fatah and with the Egyptian authorities to work a new border arrangement.

Mr Haniya called for the border crossing to be reopened "on the basis of national participation," meaning that Hamas would be prepared to cede some control to President Abbas and his Fatah-led government in the West Bank. "We don’t want to be the only ones in control of these matters," Mr Haniyeh said, speaking from his Gaza City office live on Hamas TV.

"Everything Haniya is saying is simply to exploit this situation to win political gains. ... It is a part of the problem, not the solution," said Ashraf Ajramim, a Cabinet minister in Mr Abbas's government. Israel refused to comment on the developments in Gaza.

The skill of the Hamas demolition operation was clear to see along the border today, although The Times could not visit the entire length of the border. Where the charges had been laid, the wall was heavily damaged. Elsewhere it appeared to be clearly cut.

The destruction of the wall prompted hundreds of thousands to cross into Egypt – and Egyptian border guards did not try to stem the tide of humanity.

Instead Rafah became a huge Middle Eastern bazaar. Thousands of people were herding back cows, sheep and even camels from Egypt into the Gaza strip. Others brought back motorbikes while many women lugged back cans of olive oil and men could be seen weighed down with jerry-cans full of fuel.

Moneychangers flocked to the border, offering Egyptian pounds and American dollars for the Gazans' Israeli shekels. The shops soon began to run out, however, and those returning were complaining of sky-rocketing prices.

Instead, many people jumped into taxis - or even on the roofs of taxis - to take themselves to El Arish, 45km away, the nearest town with shops.

In no-man's land, along the stretch that the Israelis used to call Philadelphia Road before their disengagement in 2005, Hamas gunmen raced along in pick-up trucks flying the group's green flag. Egyptian riot police waited by the gates of the old border crossing, leaning with nonchalance against their riot shields.

Among those returning were Osama Hassan, 25, who went shopping with his 17-year-old fiancee Sarah for their wedding essentials. He bought a special mattress for his injured back; she brought kitchen supplies.

“I’m Fatah, but today, I wish I could see (Hamas prime minister Ismail) Haniyeh and kiss his forehead, because without the gunmen doing this, we would have been stuck in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

Egyptian shopkeepers swiftly raised prices of milk, taxi rides and cigarettes, but that did not deter the Gazans, for many of whom it was their first trip out of the territory.

Some staggered back into Gaza carrying televisions, and others sported brand-new mobile phones. In Gaza City, prices of cigarettes - which had skyrocketed during the total blockade of the past week - fell by 70 per cent in a few hours.

Rami al-Shawwa, a 23-year old falafel vendor, said he planned to head to Egypt in the afternoon, after his brothers returned from there. He was going to buy waterpipe tobacco and just “smell some new air”.

“We have been living in darkness for days, and closure before,” he said, adding that he is not concerned about getting stuck in Egypt. “For my 23 years in Gaza, a year in Egypt will make up for it.”

what an amazing story

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00270/Gaza385x185_270943a.jpg

http://www.defence.gov.au/news/raafnews/editions/4711/images/18-berlin_wall.jpg

why is "to buy food" in "quotes"?

anyway, fuck, good for them

Borstal Breakout!

maybe because most of them are buying food, and thats good but some of them (Hamas men) will bring more weapon inside from egypt.

Apparently Hamas were stopping (non-Hamas) people from bringing guns back into Gaza.

one fascinating thing about all this is that under the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the Egyptians could not deploy enough forces to the border to stop the breakout happening.

The other thing about the Gaza-Egypt border is that it is relatively porous for organised smuggling (the kind of thing that Hamas would do for military re-supply or criminal gangs would do to bring in boa constrictors (I am not making this up)), but until the breakout it was sufficient to stop people buying fripperies like food or fuel.

DV otm.

Guns were not going to be interdicted by the presence of a border wall and police. Absolutely ammo would not be. But food is required in such large quantities that whatever could be smuggled across would be negligible compared to the need.

The fact is that Israel thought that it could control the citizens of Gaza by controlling their food and fuel supply through a blockade. They failed. Blockades generally fail. When they do succeed, they succeed by killing large numbers of people through slow starvation. The Israeli government was apparently just fine with that idea.

The Egyptians seem to be trying to reseal the border: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7208252.stm

The officials said that the opening of the crossing enabled dozens of terrorists to leave the Gaza Strip and return with weaponry, money and new terror skills.

Ah yes, Egypt's famous "8-hour Terror Workshops."

lol

This story is incredible.

Not so incredible, actually. Rather than loosen their political principles (as agreed upon by the entire international community) Hamas are perfectly fine with letting everyone in Gaza starve, and have stated exactly that on many occasions. They blockaded themselves into their current situation, it's been going on for two years now, and people should stop being fooled when Hamas pleads for sympathy over their own self-created humanitarian crises.

Hamas craves these moments because they have no other way of interacting with the international community. Foreign aid and UN resolutions come pouring in, and then they can claim that they're interacting with other nations and have effectively broken the international boycott without having to compromise on their principles.

The solution, or at least the beginnings of one, are absurdly simple. There are any number of oil-rich Arab states that could be contributing fuel, and Gaza relies on ... ISRAEL(?!?) to sustain it? With no Plan B in sight? WTF? Of course, Arab nations have rarely done jack shit to help Palestinians except for talking the talk at the UN (which is minimally helpful), and I don't have much hope that they'd change their ways any time soon.

Hamas ain't build that wall, son.

ooh served

Israel's favorite game is "Stop hitting yourself!"

btw Does Israel actually "supply" fuel to Gaza? I was under the impression that they were just not allowing in the supplies, not that they were the source of the supplies.

...their own self-created humanitarian crises.

Give it up. This is just wrong. It a rationalization that allows you to overlook the facts before they become inconvenient to your desires.

This became a humanitarian crisis only when Israel decided to blockade food and fuel, which action punishes 100% of the inhabitants of Gaza, regardless of their activities, beliefs, age or condition. It punishes infants and children, the ill and infirm, even their own sympathizers who live in Gaza.

That was a decision. The government of Israel had far more than one choice of action. This is what they chose. It was freely taken and not forced upon them.

The fact that Hamas is almost always wrong does not make Israel right when Israel is wrong. The fact that Hamas engages in highly distorted propaganda does not mean that Israel promotes only the truth.

Uh, did I defend Israel in my post? The latest crisis in Gaza began when Hamas was elected, and was made worse when they took over completely last June. This is the root cause of this week's events, not anything Israel did or didn't do.

Hamas also had more than one choice of action. They chose the one that involved not recognizing Israel and not honouring past agreements made by the PA. This is what they chose. It was freely taken and not forced upon them. There have been countless opportunities for them to change their strategy, at which point the international community will be knocking down their doors with more money and aid than they will be able to count.

Because of that choice, they have been diplomatically and economically isolated. To deal with the shortfall of goods and aid, they have been relying on supplies from a country they don't recognize and continue to attack almost daily. Pretty dumb strategy, if you ask me. Whatever Israel does or doesn't do at this point is a small perturbation on the mess that Hamas already created for themselves.

did I defend Israel in my post?

No, but I did quote the relevant passage I was responding to.

I hit the submit too soon. None of the actions taken by Hamas that you cite caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They may have been dumb, but they are not the "root cause".

If you want to seek a "root cause" you have to go back a lot further than the election in Gaza. That had antecedent causes stretching back to the Balfour Declaration. By going back only so far as the election you simply chose the most convenient point for your particular conclusions, not any compelling "root" of the conflict.

Hamas Israel also had more than one choice of action. They chose the one that involved not recognizing Israel Hamas and not honouring past agreements made by the PA Israeli govt. This is what they chose. It was freely taken and not forced upon them.

The people of Hiroshima could have made a different choice. They could have risen up to overthrow their government. They didn't. The Japanese government is to blame for their suffering, not the United States.

You're right Aimless, "root cause" is a poor choice of words. But I think my overall point was clear -- Hamas ostracized themselves and should shoulder most of the responsibility for the economic ruin that created this crisis.

Hurting, your play on words is simply stupid. Every country in the world has agreed on the minimum conditions for engaging with Hamas. If you disagree, that's your business.

Your whole argument is a dodge.

The particular "ruin" I am speaking of, which is the humanitarian cost of this blockade, falls squarely on the shoulders of Israel's government.

When rockets out of Gaza fall on civilians in Israel and kill them, do Israelis buy the arguments made by Hamas that the blame rests mainly with Israel? Do you buy that argument? If not, why do you make the same argument from the opposite side?

Hamas doesn't even have control of Gaza's borders and suffers constant military incursions -- how can it bear the brunt of responsibility for Gaza's economic situation?

And more to the point, there are tactics that are just unacceptable, regardless of the justification or background. And as Aimless pointed out, just as I oppose the indiscriminate shelling/rocketing of a civilian town or suicide bombing of civilian centers, I also oppose the complete choking off from basic needs of a large civilian population.

Also Israel engages in indiscriminate bombing of civilian centers.

wish we could just ban bombings

let's put a separation wall between the army and the bombs

Does Israel actually "supply" fuel to Gaza? I was under the impression that they were just not allowing in the supplies, not that they were the source of the supplies.

I think Israel might actually supply fuel and electricity to Gaza (when not blockading it), under the old international law thing that if you are occupying* somewhere you have to look after it.

There are any number of oil-rich Arab states that could be contributing fuel, and Gaza relies on ... ISRAEL(?!?) to sustain it?

The various oil-rich Arab states are not occupying Gaza. Also, until last week there was an Israeli controlled wall around Gaza that prevented anyone other than Israel from supplying fuel to the territory.

* yeah yeah, I know, Gaza pull-out etc., but Israel still controls Gaza's airspace, makes incursions into the territory whenever it wants to, blocks its sea entrances, and until last week sought to control everyone who entered or left the territory by all land routes; hence international law still considering Gaza occupied by Israel.

I remember ages ago, Tom Ewing or someone else likened aspects of the Israel-Palestine situation to a gang-war. The analogy has struck in my mind a lot, because it highlights the somewhat irrational actions of the players in the game. Could anyone really say that Palestinian militants have advanced their goals by firing rockets at Sderot? Surely not. Likewise, has anything the Israelis have done to the people of Gaza managed to stop rockets being fired at Sderot? Nope. I dunno, I think maybe it is time that people over there sat back and approached things from first principles and stopped killing people on the other side to cheer themselves up.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44381000/jpg/_44381102_gaza_203.jpg

this is my current favourite picture from the Middle East - a Caterpillar bulldozer being used not to destroy homes or kill political activists, but to smash down the walls dividing people.

i wonder how many went through that hole in the wall and just said fuck it im not going back

some of the news reports suggested that there might be a lot of these, but who knows. Even though Gaza is a suckhole, it might be a better place to live than Egypt without papers.

Hamas ostracized themselves

Ha: people are already doing fine rebutting this argument, but I have to single out this line, just on a language level -- the notion here is such a weird one that even English syntax and etymology rise up and rebel against it!

The problem here isn't even that you shouldn't blame Hamas -- blame Hamas if you want -- but the "Hamas is directly responsible" line is a way of skipping over and evading the actual complicated questions that are at the root of this stuff. Questions like "is it morally decent to siege and starve a whole population in order to pressure their leadership," or even "is it productive to do so; will it contribute to the long-term results we want." You can answer those questions however you like, but you can't just skip around them like they don't even exist.

the idea of waking up one morning to this hole in the fence after living your whole life the tiny gaza strip is totally fascinating.