Egypt reopening Gaza border

WASHINGTON—In a decision expected to spark diplomatic fallout in Israel, Egypt’s new military overseers will puncture the blockade of Gaza on Saturday by reopening the lone official Palestinian border to the outside world.

The move, announced Wednesday as a “permanent” change, was met with stony silence in Jerusalem, where Israeli officials have long fretted over the unfettered flow of weaponry into the Hamas-controlled territory.

Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency revealed the decision to reopen the Rafah crossing, calling it part of Egypt’s efforts to “end the status of the Palestinian division and achieve national reconciliation” between the rival leaderships of Fatah and Hamas.

Egyptian officials said Rafah, mostly shuttered since the militant Hamas movement seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, would open Saturday morning and remain so, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., on all but Fridays and holidays. It was expected that women would pass without restrictions in both directions, while Palestinian men between the ages of 18 and 40 will require Egyptian visas.

Israeli officials declined comment and it was unclear whether they were privy to background talks in the runup to the decision. An official with a European Union monitoring group that provided oversight Rafah prior to the Hamas takeover said the decision came as a surprise, adding, “We are ready when they are.”

The decision was heralded in Gaza, a cramped coastal territory packed with an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians, where human movement in recent years depended on Israeli permission to pass through the rigidly controlled Erez border to Israel.

“This is a very positive step. We appreciate the efforts from the Egyptian side to facilitate the travel of people. I hope this will be implemented honestly and can be done in such a way that people will feel a new era in the Gaza Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, told the Washington Post.

The decision marks a sharp reversal from the policies of the ousted Hosni Mubarak regime, which was consistently responsive to Israeli security concerns. As the Arab Spring shifts to a still uncertain summer in Egypt, the transitional leadership has hinted repeatedly at placing Palestinian concerns above those of Israel.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby described the closure of Rafah as “a disgusting matter” in an interview last month with Al-Jazeera, suggesting the policy would soon be reversed.

Israeli officials have long regarded southern Gaza as the leakiest border on the Palestinian frontier, having waged a decade-long battle against a network of underground tunnels laced beneath the sandy expanse that stretches inland 15 kms from the Mediterranean. Smuggling clans in control of the tunnel system are believed to import everything from cheap Egyptian cigarettes to alcohol. But it is the flow of rockets — and militants — that is Israel’s overwhelming concern.

An Israeli security source quoted by Israeli daily Yediot Aronoth said the tunnel system is a secondary concern to the prospect of an officially sanctioned Rafah crossing.

“There is a difference between these (tunneling) attempts, that are sometimes thwarted, and an official border crossing that will exacerbate this worrying phenomenon,” the source said.

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