Deal opens Gaza borders

One group of Palestinian college students from Gaza is a case in point. Though enrolled in their third year of an occupational therapy undergraduate program at Bethlehem University in the West Bank, the only such training opportunity anywhere in the Palestinian territories, the group of 10 students has been prohibited from ever actually attending class on campus. Instead, they learn by watching a screen - a teleconferencing setup that is hosted at the British Council office in Gaza.

"I tried three times to get an Israeli travel permit," says Riham Al Muzain, a young woman with her face neatly framed by a white head scarf, "but they said that some of the young men among us might be terrorists. We need to be able to have the right to study there so we can help people here."

After violence soared with the start of the intifada in September 2000, Israel put strict limits on permits, giving very few to men under 35 - those who are considered more likely to fit the profile of a suicide bomber.

Gisha, the Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement, is a new Israeli organization representing the students as well as many others who can't move between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Previous Israeli-Palestinian peace accords view the two areas as one territorial unit, but Palestinians must hold a hard-to-get permit to be in a territory other than the one in which they were born.

"There needs to be regular access for students and professionals in order to get the training and skills they need, for Gaza to be a viable place," says Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, which means "access" or "approach" in Hebrew. "There's a ban on travel for students between Gaza and the West Bank that is not based on any security information: A student who requests one is automatically told "no."

Tuesday's agreement should change all of that and more, facilitating by mid-December the opening of a "safe passage" route - a concept considered an integral part of the Oslo Accords throughout the late 1990s. More goods, including agricultural items that can be spoiled during a lengthy inspection process, are to be allowed to enter the Israeli and Egyptian markets without delays.

Restrictions will remain tight, however, on who and what comes into Gaza. Israel's concern has been that lack of control over the Gaza-Egypt border will permit a free flow of weapons and militants. As a compromise, 57 EU security experts will monitor the Rafah crossing while a joint Israeli-Palestinian team surveys it from afar. This aspect of the deal was brokered in part by the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Salana, whose participation marks a renewed effort by Europe to participate in talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Rice acknowledged that the deal was a good jump-start, but that it may be premature to declare the peace process back on track. "We have challenges ahead, not just in implementing the road map," she said. "We have challenges ahead in implementing this agreement, too. I've asked that every couple of weeks, I can get a report on how we are doing on moving toward the implementation of the deadlines."

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