Rafah Border Still Open
On one hand, it is a security problem:
Hundreds of people continued to cross the border between Gaza and Egypt unhindered despite efforts by police on both sides of the frontier to assert control. Around 30 Palestinian police and 20 Egyptian border guards took up positions at dawn on the main road straddling the border, previously blocked by a mound of earth, but just hours later they failed to stop a group of Palestinians. Children in school uniform, men and women also crossed the border Thursday as Palestinian police were preparing tea a short distance away.
On the other hand, people are getting their lives back:
Once Israel had pulled its last troops out of Gaza, Abdullah Sweillam left behind the strip's squalid ghettos along with his wife and three children, slipping into Egypt to rekindle a romance with his second spouse. Sweillam, who is in his 40s, was among thousands of Palestinians who crossed to the Egyptian side of this desert town, which has been split by a brick wall and barbed wire fence since Israel's occupation of Gaza began 38 years ago. Israel finalized its pullout on Monday, handing Gaza over to Palestinian control. But unlike most who clambered back over the walls onto the Palestinian side Wednesday to comply with a deadline to return, Sweillam says he is staying put for "at least a year" to live with his Egyptian-born wife, who he last saw before the Palestinian uprising started in 2000.
Hundreds of people continued to cross the border between Gaza and Egypt unhindered despite efforts by police on both sides of the frontier to assert control. Around 30 Palestinian police and 20 Egyptian border guards took up positions at dawn on the main road straddling the border, previously blocked by a mound of earth, but just hours later they failed to stop a group of Palestinians. Children in school uniform, men and women also crossed the border Thursday as Palestinian police were preparing tea a short distance away.
On the other hand, people are getting their lives back:
Once Israel had pulled its last troops out of Gaza, Abdullah Sweillam left behind the strip's squalid ghettos along with his wife and three children, slipping into Egypt to rekindle a romance with his second spouse. Sweillam, who is in his 40s, was among thousands of Palestinians who crossed to the Egyptian side of this desert town, which has been split by a brick wall and barbed wire fence since Israel's occupation of Gaza began 38 years ago. Israel finalized its pullout on Monday, handing Gaza over to Palestinian control. But unlike most who clambered back over the walls onto the Palestinian side Wednesday to comply with a deadline to return, Sweillam says he is staying put for "at least a year" to live with his Egyptian-born wife, who he last saw before the Palestinian uprising started in 2000.
posted by ritzy @ 2:14 pm
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