Palestinian militants breach border again
JERUSALEM – Egypt tried to close its breached border with the Gaza Strip on Friday, but Hamas militants bulldozed a new opening in a border wall and riot police failed to stem the flow of thousands of Palestinians into Egyptian territory.
The border breach at Rafah, in defiance of a tightened Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza in response to rocket attacks, is becoming a growing challenge to the Egyptian government. It does not want to be seen as aiding the Israelis in sealing off Gaza but it also fears a spillover of Islamist influence from the Hamas-ruled territory.
Public opinion in Egypt and across the Arab world is strongly sympathetic to the Palestinians in Gaza, and the scenes of confrontations at the border, broadcast on Arabic satellite channels, have put the Egyptian leadership in an awkward position.
Pressed by the United States and Israel to act, Egypt moved Friday to reassert control.
After announcing over loudspeakers that the border would close at 3 p.m. local time, lines of Egyptian riot police carrying plastic shields and sticks faced off with crowds, sometimes lashing out at people to push them back. Stones were thrown, and the police responded with water cannon.
A bulldozer carrying black-clad Hamas militants plowed into a concrete border wall, flattening sections of it as gunfire went off and onlookers cheered. Hundreds then surged through the opening, some carrying plastic jugs for fuel, as riot police watched from a short distance away.
An Egyptian border guard was reportedly wounded in the leg by gunfire, and five other police officers by stones.
In other areas along the border, thousands of Gazans pushed past police lines and continued to move into and out of Egypt for the third day, hauling back goods on foot and on donkey carts. Cranes lifted camels, cows and motorcycles into the Gaza Strip, along with crates of supplies. Sheep were heaved over the border wall.
Palestinians have been buying food, cigarettes, medicine, electrical appliances, cement and livestock, replenishing stocks of items whose import has been banned by Israel during months of border closures imposed after Hamas seized control of Gaza in June.
By late afternoon Friday, the Egyptian riot police were withdrawn from the border, allowing people to move freely again. A United Nations official in Cairo estimated that 700,000 Palestinians, nearly half the population of the Gaza Strip, had crossed the border into Egypt since Hamas militants blasted open a border wall Wednesday.