Egypt Opens Rafah Border With Gaza

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Intro: "Egypt has reopened its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, allowing the coastal territory's Palestinian residents to cross freely for the first time in four years."

Palestinian Mohammed Ahmed holds his father's passport at the Egyptian passport control, 05/28/11. (photo: Amr Nabil/AP)

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+2 # Activista 2011-05-28 17:28

FREE THE PEOPLE OF GAZA: Rami Arafat, 52, was among the earliest arrivals. He said he hoped to catch a flight out of Cairo on Sunday to Algeria for his daughter's wedding.
"All we need is to travel like humans, be treated with dignity, and feel like any other citizens of the world who can travel in and out freely," Arafat said. He said he believed the relaxing of travel restrictions "will guarantee more support from all Arabs and Palestinians for the new Egyptian regime."
Nearby, 28-year-old Khaled Halaweh said he was headed to Egypt to study for a master's degree in engineering at Alexandria University.

0 # ptalady 2011-05-30 11:33

Attending a wedding, starting grad school -- all worthy pursuits, but their hindrance over the past 5 years hardly amounts to a humanitarian crisis.

+2 # Activista 2011-05-28 17:36

Israeli troops invaded al-Nabi Salleh in the morning and surrounded the village. Soldiers fired tear gas at the protesters as soon as they left the local mosque after the midday prayers. A 24 year old woman was injured in her leg by a tear gas bomb, for 15 minutes troops refused to allow the ambulance to take her to a hospital, witnesses told PNN.
After people ended the weekly protest soldiers detained a group of children and did not allow them to go home, when Nariman Tamimi, a local resident, tried to free the children soldiers beat her up.
www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/9234324-please-watch-this-video-israeli-soldiers-beating-women-and-unarmed-protesters

+1 # Activista 2011-05-28 17:39

"For years, American presidents taken a weak stance on illegal Israeli settlement construction, but none have come so close as Obama to actually legitimising them"
english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011523115553473983.html

-1 # Elan 2011-05-29 05:53

So it turns out Israel is not the only evil. Without the Gazan declaring war on Egypt, without them training their missiles on Egyptian towns or sending their sons and daughters as human bomb into Egyptian buses, Egypt closed the door on Gaza and effectively locked the citizen of Gaza in their little strip.
Yet not one person who over the years blamed, and continues to do so, Israel of causing hardship and misery in Gaza by closing it's own borders, is even thinking of pointing a finger at Egypt.
Can any of you explain to m,e why? Why are you not looking at Egypt who effectively segregated the Palestinian in the Gaza strip effectively since 1948? Why isn't your outrage aimed tat Egypt who held the key to the Gaza strip for ever and yet chose to keep it in it's back pocket and leave the Gazan to their sufferings? Could it be because you are not really interested in justice but rather something much more cynical, like the destruction of Israel? or maybe it is simple pure antisemitism?

0 # Activista 2011-05-29 09:22

" Gazan declaring war on Egypt, without them training their missiles on Egyptian towns or sending their sons and daughters as human bomb into Egyptian buses."
Elan - PLEASE provide references to above - did the missiles had nuclear heads? Israel has 200+ of them - maybe these were Israelis?
Egypt's dictator Mubarak closed borders because Israel and US directed him - bribed him with billions of foreign "aid".
The World celebrates freedom for Gaza (opening prison). Who wants to keep Gaza 5 year old blockade?- "Only democracy in the middle East" and USA!

-1 # ptalady 2011-05-30 11:44

Supposing your explanation is true, that Egypt closed its border with Gaza because it was "bribed" with US foreign aid, and "Israel and US...directed [it]" to do so, who bears responsibility for Egypt's accepting this "bribe," and for Egypt's following this direction? And why have these examples of Egypt's alleged corruption not been endlessly decried these past 4 years as causing Gazan misery? Is it the omnipotent Israel that somehow controls whether Egypt accepts "bribes"? Egypt bears responsibility for 4 years of Gazan suffering too, and anti-semitism seems to me to be the principal reason that it has never been mentioned in the media, arab or otherwise, until now.

+1 # Activista 2011-05-30 19:16

Please look at map of GAZA - Egypt controls ONE human gate -
- Commercial traffic will continue to have to pass through border points with Israel to enter Gaza = ISRAEL CONTROL/Boycot. The same sea - Palestinians fishermen are bing killed by Israeli warships. Gaza is one ***** camp.

0 # ptalady 2011-05-30 11:47

Thank you for bringing up this point, it is long overdue: Egypt bears responsibility for Gazan suffering too, and this deserves to be publicly aired.

+2 # Activista 2011-05-29 09:45

Arab Spring - on the May 15 'Nakba Day' protests. During these peaceful demonstrations, the Israeli military responded in a predictable way - by firing indiscriminatel y on unarmed protesters. By the end of the shooting spree, more than 20 people were killed at the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

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