Egypt to Close Gaza Border, Hamas Agrees
By Diaa Hadid
Associated Press Writer
February 2, 2008
CBNNews.com - RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Egypt will close its breached border wall with Gaza on Sunday in coordination with Hamas, the Palestinian terror group that blew it up, a senior Hamas leader said Saturday after meeting with Egyptian officials.
But Mahmoud al-Zahar said the closure would be temporary while the Egyptians search for a way to reopen the border.
Egyptian officials were not available for comment on the Hamas claims. It was not clear whether Egypt was considering the group's demand for a say in running the Egypt-Gaza border.
Any role for the Islamic terrorists on the border would be sure to anger the international community and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas because it would amount to tacit recognition of Hamas rule in Gaza.
Hamas violently wrested control of the Gaza Strip in June, leaving Abbas controlling only the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).
Since the border breach, hundreds of thousands of Gazans have flooded Egypt's border area and Hamas has thwarted repeated attempts by Egypt to reseal the frontier.
On Saturday, Egyptian security forces arrested two Palestinians carrying a bomb in el-Massoura, a village about 2.5 miles west of the border with Gaza, a Sinai security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. A police official in Cairo said the two had been trying to reach beach resorts in the southern Sinai.
On Friday, a Sinai intelligence official said Egyptian security forces were looking for four Palestinians on who slipped into the country from Gaza and were suspected of planning suicide attacks against tourists at Sinai resorts. But it was unclear if the two men arrested Saturday were the same ones Egypt had been tracking.
At least 17 Palestinians have been arrested in the past days carrying weapons and explosives near the border and other remote parts of the Sinai desert.
Al-Zahar said Egyptian officials told him they would restore order at the crossing.
"Egypt's message was very clear, that Sunday should be the day to put an end to this scene," al-Zahar told the Arab satellite TV station al-Jazeera.
The Hamas leader, widely seen as the mastermind of Hamas' Gaza takeover, said the Islamic group would cooperate with Egypt in its efforts.
According to al-Zahar, Egypt agreed to coordinate with Hamas on some border issues and to enable thousands of Palestinians stuck in Egypt to head to third countries for which they have visas or residency permits.
In an interview with Associated Press Television News, al-Zahar suggested the Egyptians planned to reopen the border after talks with European officials arriving in the region.
"Tomorrow they [the Egyptians] are going to start dialogue with the European people in order to make an end for our sanctions and to allow opening of the gates freely and without preconditions," he said.
The EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, was expected to arrive in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials later Saturday. The international Mideast envoy, Tony Blair, was also planning a trip to the region in coming days to address the border standoff.
Hamas breached the border several days after Israel closed its border crossings Gaza, with Egyptian backing, in response to daily rocket and mortar shell barrages from Palestinians in Gaza on southern Israeli communities.
Earlier this week, Egypt and Abbas endorsed restoring a 2005 border arrangement in which European monitors were deployed on the Palestinian side to prevent smuggling of weapons and militants, and Israel watched traffic by closed-circuit TV.
Abbas has proposed sending PA security forces to the border to circumvent the international boycott of Hamas and ensure the crossing is open.
Hamas has said it opposes the 2005 arrangement because it granted Israel final say over when the Gaza-Egypt border is open. The EU monitors are based in Israel, and at times Israel asked the monitors to stay away due to security concerns.
Zahar suggested that Hamas was flexible about the extent of its role on the border, but wanted Israel and the EU to be excluded from running it.
"The crossing has to be open because it's an Egytian-Palestinian crossing," he told al-Jazeera. "There have been obstacles ... in the past due to Israeli intervention, and European Union and Israeli pressure. All of these contributed to the siege of the Palestinian people."
The head of the Hamas government in Gaza, deposed PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he would like to see Gaza's economy cut from Israel and instead receive fuel and electricity from Egypt.
"We have said from the days of our election campaign that we want to move toward economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation," Haniyeh told the pro-Hamas daily Palestine. "Egypt has a greater ability to meet the needs of Gaza.
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have been supplied with thousands of tons of explosives and weaponry smuggled from Egypt via tunnels dug under the border, especially since Israel's August 2005 pullout from Gaza.
AP reporter Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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