On Gaza's borders, anxiety mounts
Israel relaxed travel restrictions Wednesday, allowing a few seriously ill Palestinians and all foreign nationals to leave Gaza.
from the June 21, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Residents here feel strong ties with the Palestinians living just a few hundred yards away and many say they support Hamas in its fight with Fatah for control of the Palestinian territories.
Abdel Razaq Abdel Hamid grew up in a house facing the border with Gaza. From his roof he can see young Palestinians trying to clamor across the border and buildings in Gaza pocked marked from bombs he says were dropped by Israel.
"Hamas and only Hamas. They are the only ones who can bring security," he says when asked which Palestinian faction he supports. His brother next to him on his rooftop, overlooking the border, nods. "It's just one family between Egypt and Palestine."
Border security since Hamas won control of Gaza has rested mainly with the Egyptians. Fatah border guards fled to Egypt when Hamas won control of Gaza and Hamas has turned up at the border only sporadically so far, local residents say, and have been strafed by Israeli planes.
That has led to some 100 young Palestinian men slipping across to Egypt in the past few days, Awad, Mr. Hamid, and other local residents say.
Three border crossing point connect Egypt and Gaza. Only Rafah still opens sporadically and is heavily guarded.
The other two crossings closed a few years ago and aren't as heavily guarded. The one by Awad's shops was guarded by a single stick-wielding Egyptian soldier on a recent afternoon.
A guard tower and a half dozen soldiers milling about were the only visible human deterrent to illegal crossings from Gaza for the several kilometers of border within in view of the old crossing.
Egyptians living along this border said Palestinians blow holes through the massive metal wall that marks the Gaza Strip's border. Then they scramble across a few hundred yards of no man's land and use wire cutters to breach a fence topped with barbed wired that demarcates Egyptian territory.
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