Gaza Empties
Raising some interesting possibilities, as noted in Ha’aretz:
It took seconds for the rumor to travel across the Gaza Strip: The border with Egypt is no more.
It began with a series of blasts across Rafah that rang out at around dawn. Hamas’ military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, detonated some 20 explosive charges attached to the fence separating the Egyptian side of Rafah from the Palestinian half of town. The wall simply collapsed, and it has been allowed to stay that way.
To their surprise, the first border crossers at the site that was once called the Philadelphi route faced no Egyptian security forces after they gingerly crossed over to Egypt. Minutes later, the explosions were reported in the Arab media.
…
Many of the crossers made the trip to stock up on supplies, mostly cigarettes, which are a rare commodity across Gaza nowadays. They also bought other goods such as livestock, motorcycles, food, fuel and concrete.
Others skipped the shopping spree, opting to visit relatives on the Egyptian side whom they had not seen in months. Some sought medical treatment. Some crossed over with no intention of going back as long as Gaza is under siege.
“The whole Strip in now in Egypt,” a Palestinian cabdriver who lives in the city said. By the afternoon, there was a sense that Gaza was emptying its entire human content onto the Sinai. According to reports, more than 200,000 Palestinians had crossed over to Egypt, and proceeded to storm the shops at Rafah and Al-Arish.
“Your army could take the entire Strip in one hour now, if you wanted,” Adel observed. “Everyone is having a party in Al-Arish.”
…As for the Egyptian security forces, they took pains to refrain from confrontations with the Palestinians ferrying goods to and fro. At first, they rushed to block the traffic of vehicles, before relenting and allowing the few running cars to cross over.
But the Egyptian police did deploy dozens of roadblocks meant to block and isolate the area, so as not to allow the hundreds of thousands of potential immigrants to reach deep into the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt proper.
Good luck getting rid of the Gazans and blocking those holes up! Now, if the cabbie had it figured out, you have to think the IDF was mulling the possibilities. Hey, it may yet prove to be an insidious Zionist plot.
Nor was Hamas blind to the opportunities of the moment. “Taxes” and half sacks of fertilizer. UK Telegraph:
With Egypt showing no appetite to restore order immediately, Israel’s decades-old control of goods and people reaching Gaza was brought to an end the instant explosive charges punched eight holes in the concrete and steel frontier.
It immediately relieved pressure from the recent blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza to try to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets across the perimeter fence into the Jewish state.
And it raised the very real threat of Palestinian militants ramping up arms smuggling into Gaza from Egypt to increase attacks on Israel.
How real is the threat? More Telegraph:
First came the teenagers, curious to see what would happen to them on a border where, until very recently, they could expect to be shot on sight.
Then came the smugglers, aware a good turn was to be made on cigarettes bought in Egypt for £9 a carton but sold in Gaza for nearer £25.
Finally came crowds and crowds of normal Gazans, men and women, old and young, some on bicycles, a few being pushed in wheelchairs, simply enjoying the rare sensation of freedom.
And somewhere in the teeming crowd, came people anxious to exploit the day for their own less innocent purposes.
Fertiliser, broken down into half bags for lugging through the many tunnels that arms smugglers normally use for delivery into Gaza, was to be seen as it was manhandled overland.
It was white, oily, crystalline and a dab on the tongue left a sharp, burning sensation.
In most countries fertiliser has a perfectly innocent function but in Gaza militants use it to make explosive.
“Hey, hey, hey,” shouted a man as I took a photograph of a pile of fertiliser half bags.
His aggressive tone jarred with the mood the crowd as he grabbed my camera lens firmly.
That’s not good. But this might be the answer to Egypt’s new relaxed attitude toward border security. Once they figure out Hamas is collecting “taxes” on their sandlot:
Over on the Egyptian side of the border, Ahmed, an Egyptian Bedouin had manoeuvred his rusty pick-up through a field of prickly pear cactus plants and was selling cigarettes by the carton.
“It is good business but you have to be quick,” he said, his dark-skinned face hidden by a kefiyeh wrapped tightly around his head against the winter cold.
“The Hamas men have started to demand taxes of £10 a carton so you have to make sure they don’t catch you.”
UPDATE: Clever Israelis … fascinating move. Mubarak? Your turn.
Prior: More Trouble in Paradise, Hamas Rocketing Deepens Hardship, Killing Israeli Children Bad.
Welcome Instapundit, etal. Good to see you, come on in. Guess who’s worried about their Coalition of the Killing coming apart. Meanwhile, we’re trying to figure out why anyone would want to break into the Romney HQ. It’s a mystery. Petty criminality or exercise in citizenship run amuck?Here’s another mystery that just got better. No shortage of mysteries today, like, where’d Bill get the idea he’s in any position to lecture someone about their professional conduct?
Topics: Israel, Palestinians, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:23 pm on Wednesday, January 23, 2008
3 Responses to “Gaza Empties”
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January 23rd, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hey, a wall between Egypt and Gaza, keeping the Palestinians in!!! Those crafty Joooooosssssss are EVERYWHERE.
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Push them all into Egypt, and let the Arabs take care of the Arabs. If they can.
Simplistic, and some would say racist. But those are ignorant opinions.
January 24th, 2008 at 1:02 am
[...] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Jules Crittenden [...]