Egypt’s Breached Wall
After weeks of pressure from Israel and the USA to resist the pent up anger of the Palestinians in Gaza, Egyptian Boarder police apparently did little to stop thousands of hungry Palestinians from surging into Egypt. The Egyptian authorities, increasingly embarrassed by their obligations under agreements with Israel and the US to participate in the siege of Gaza did little to stop the crowds when Palestinian gunmen blew up a section of the border wall between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, allowing thousands of Palestinians to cross into Egypt.
Tens of thousands of desperate Palestinians thronged across the Egyptian border to stock up on essential supplies, Egypt risks portraying itself as a full partner in Israel’s blockade should it now try to close the border again.
The goods carried back by the day trippers were testament to the effectiveness of Israel’s economic war against Hamas and the 1.5 million people of Gaza. Israel has imposed a months-long blockade of Gaza that was tightened on Thursday to a full-scale lockdown aimed at halting rocket fire into Israel. It was eased on Tuesday to allow urgent deliveries of fuel for Gaza’s shuttered power plant and for near-empty back-up generators at hospitals.
Already short of money, Gazans yesterday brought back from Egypt only small quantities of the things they most desperately needed: cooking oil, baby milk powder, soap, washing powder, medicine, petrol, cooking gas and foodstuffs. Others herded livestock over the border or loaded donkey carts with cement and other building materials blocked by Israel since last year from entry into the Hamas-run territory.
While most of those who left planned only to shop and return, some embarked upon longer journeys. A number of seriously ill patients, trapped in Gaza because of the Israeli border closures, were transferred to Egypt in ambulances – the only motorised vehicles allowed to cross the border into Egypt yesterday.
By forcing the border open, Hamas militants scored a propaganda and a practical victory. Egyptian police in riot gear stood by the various breaches in the wall but made no attempts to interfere with people crossing. The forced entry came the day after a tense stand-off at the border crossing, where gunfire erupted when a group of mainly women forced their way across.
No matter how important it is for Israel to force Hamas to stop the rocket attacks, starving the general population to make the terrorists stop is foolish policy. Egypt was right to show a humanitarian attitude when the walls were breached.
The Christian Post Reports (Thursday January 24 2008) that “Churches in the Middle East denounced Israel’s blockade of Gaza as an “immoral act” that has cut off the entire country from proper food and medicine. The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, called the blockade of Gaza “illegal collective punishment, an immoral act in violation of the basic human and natural laws as well as International Law,” in a statement issued Jan. 22 – a day before Hamas militants destroyed the Gaza-Egypt barrier.
Younan and other Holy Land church leaders added that the blockade “cannot be tolerated anymore” and “the siege over Gaza should end now.” “To deny children and civilians their necessary basic commodities are not the ways to security but rather throw the region into further and more dangerous deterioration. This siege will not guarantee the end to rocket firing, but will only increase the bitterness and suffering and invite more revenge, while the innocents keep dying,” the statement admonished.
The blockade “imprisoned” 1.5 million people “without proper food or medicine,” the church leaders voiced with concern. The punishment left large parts of the Palestinian territory, which also borders Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, without access to electricity.
REV THE HON. DR GORDON MOYES, A.C., M.L.C.
