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| Africa North | |
| Egypt Reopens Gaza Crossing For First Time In A Month | |
| 2014-11-27 | |
| [IsraelTimes] Egypt reopened the Rafah border crossing with Gazoo on Wednesday for the first time since its closure in late October after a bombing in the Sinai Peninsula, officials said. The crossing, which is the only access point to the Paleostinian territory not controlled by Israel, will open for four hours on Wednesday and Thursday, a government official said. "The crossing is being opened for two days to help traffic mainly from Egypt to Gazoo," the official said, suggesting that for now, the reopening was only temporary. An AFP correspondent on the Paleostinian side confirmed the terminal had been opened but said he saw nobody crossing into southern Gazoo during the first hour it was operating. It was not immediately clear whether Paleostinians stranded outside Gazoo had been informed in advance of Cairo's plans to reopen the crossing. Paleostinian officials said the terminal was operating in only one direction -- allowing people in but not out. "This measure only applies to those who are stuck outside of Gazoo and wish to return and not to Paleostinians who want to leave Gazoo," Maher Abu Sabha, director of border crossings in the Gazoo Strip, told AFP. The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... says more than 3,500 Paleostinians have been stranded on the Egyptian side since the crossing was closed after a suicide kaboom killed 30 soldiers in North Sinai on October 24. The attack, in an agricultural area northwest of placid provincial capital el-Arish, was the deadliest assault on Egyptian security forces since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July 2013. The closure of the crossing has also prevented thousands of Gazooks from accessing medical treatment or higher education in Egypt and beyond, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report. During the first six months of the year, when the crossing was closed for a total of 22 days, an average of 6,400 people crossed each month, it added.
Egyptian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? said outbound traffic would be allowed from 12 pm to 4 pm (1000-1400 GMT) on Wednesday and from 7 am to 4 pm (0500-1400 GMT) on Thursday. Rafah is the only major border crossing into the impoverished Gazoo Strip, a narrow, densely populated enclave on the Mediterranean coast, that does not go through Israel, which blockades the territory. | |
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