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Gunnies blow Rafah wall, thousands of Paleos flood into Egypt
Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured from the Gaza Strip into Egypt Wednesday after masked gunmen with explosives destroyed most of the seven-mile wall dividing the town of Rafah, which straddles the border. The Gazans crossed on foot, in cars or riding donkey carts to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of their impoverished territory. Police from the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, directed the traffic. Egyptian border guards took no action.The gunmen began breaching the wall dividing Rafah before dawn, according to witnesses and Hamas officials, who told The Associated Press that they later closed all but two of the gaps in the wall. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said they were allowing Palestinians to move freely through the two gaps. Thousands of Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel, the Hamas officials and witnesses said. An Associated Press reporter arrived after first light and saw that about two-thirds of the Rafah wall had been demolished. The reporter also saw the crowd of Palestinians crossing into Egypt swell into the tens of thousands. Guards directed the crowds over the fallen metal through two main crossing areas, inspecting some bags. One man returning to Gaza carried seven pistols that were confiscated by Hamas police. Others walked unhindered over the piles of scrap metal that once made up the border wall. The identity of the gunmen who breached the border was not immediately clear. But in a statement, Hamas expressed support for the move, saying, "Blowing up the border wall with Egypt is a reflection of the ... catastrophic situation which the Palestinian people in Gaza are living through due to the blockade." Before dawn Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen began blowing holes in the border wall running through Rafah, along the Gaza-Egypt border. There were 17 explosions in all, Hamas security officials said. All Egyptian security and police officers were pulled out from the immediate vicinity of the border, Egyptian security officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. They did not explain why the officers had been withdrawn. An off-duty Hamas security officer who identified himself as Abdel Rahman, 29, said this was his first time out of Gaza. "I can smell the freedom," he said. "We need no border after today." Abdel Rahman said no weapons were being smuggled in from Egypt. "You can buy weapons in Gaza, guns and RPGs," he said. Weapons are generally brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Posted by: Seafarious 2008-01-23 |
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