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Hundreds of homeless Gazans wait at Egypt border
Gaza's border with Egypt has been a focal point for aid and relief efforts coming from the outside. But as foreign journalists wait anxiously to get through what is officially a closed border, hundreds of homeless Gazans have been waiting for days trying to cross over into Egypt, and away from more than three weeks of death and destruction. Gunshots were fired at the border yesterday by frustrated Palestinian border guards trying to maintain order as over three hundred Gazans tried to get through into the Egyptian border town of Rafah. "It's just luck if I get through. They might stop me but what can I do," said Sameh Abu Dagga, a civil servant who worked at the now flattened Palestinian Legislative Council building in Gaza City. "What will I do if I don't get in? I've got no idea." Some have better chances than others, depending if they hold a passport from a foreign country, Fatiha Helmati, an Algerian living in Gaza, was one of the hundred or so who got past the gate and into Egypt. Her family took shelter in a nearby school in Khan Younis after their house was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. Her grandfather died in the rubble. "Gaza is a cage. People are trying to get out anyway they can. We have family in Algeria and we're trying to go and stay with them. I hope we can make it there." It's a growing problem that the Egyptians will have to contend with. They are already sending teams of doctors in more regularly now and aid trucks are making daily trips into the strip. But Gazans, particularly those living in Rafah have become debilitated by the Israeli offensive and now a lack of running water and electricity. And as more and more of them wait at the frontier trying to get in, the Egyptian authorities will have to decide quickly how to deal with them. Posted by: Fred 2009-01-21 |
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