The Real "Siege" of the Gaza Strip
by Khaled Abu Toameh
• August 12, 2014 at 5:00 am
Egypt has not only turned Gaza
into an "open-air prison." It has prevented the delivery of
humanitarian aid to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip before and during the
war.
Last year, more than 100 Muslim
scholars signed a petition accusing Egypt and Arab countries of participating
in the siege of Gaza by keeping Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza
closed and preventing medical and humanitarian aid.
Egypt does not want anyone to
talk about its blockade of Gaza. At the cease-fire discussions taking place
in Cairo, the Palestinians have been asked not to talk about the Rafah border
crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
The Egyptians want the world to
blame only Israel for the "siege" on the Gaza Strip, and turn it
into an Israeli, and not an Egyptian, problem.
While Egypt continues to impose
strict restrictions, hundreds of trucks of food and basic supplies — and
ambulances and medical staff from Israel — are being transported into Gaza
through border crossings with Israel.
Whatever is ultimately decided,
Hamas's leaders will find ways to smuggle weapons into Gaza: their goal is to
destroy Israel.
The
Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, January 2009. (Source:
International Transport Workers' Federation)
Recent calls for lifting the "siege" on the Gaza Strip have
ignored that Hamas's main demand, even more than for an airport or seaport,
is that Egypt reopen the Rafah border crossing, the Palestinians' only
gateway to the Arab world.
Hamas wants open borders because it wants to pursue its ultimate goal of
"liberating all Palestine, from the river to the sea." Now that it
has lost most of its smuggling tunnels as a result of Egyptian military
operations, Hamas is searching for other ways to bring weapons into the Gaza
Strip.
Hamas's leaders know that their chances of getting an airport or a
seaport are extremely low. In the past, material brought into Gaza has
included mainly weapons, cement taken to build attack-tunnels into Israel,
and dual-use material.
Much of this was either brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels, or
else through Egypt's Rafah terminal, along its Gaza border which is nearly
nine miles [14 km] long.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014
The Real "Siege" of the Gaza Strip
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