The Rafah crossing. Credit: Eva Bartlett/IPS.

By Eva Bartlett
RAFAH, Gaza, Aug 30 2012 (IPS)

“I waited from 10 am till 5 pm for my wife to cross from Egypt. She was among many hundreds who were coming into Gaza. Some waited since 6 am, some since the day before.”

Jaber (who requested anonymity out of fear of future restrictions on his exiting Gaza) was relieved when, a few days before Eid holiday began on Aug. 19, his wife was able to cross from Egypt into the Gaza Strip. During the three days of Eid, the Rafah border crossing was closed in both directions.

“Of course I was happy that my wife got through, but I was also disgusted at how Palestinians are forced to wait for, or are denied, the right to exit and enter our country.”

On Aug. 25, the border opened anew, temporarily easing the worries of Palestinians in Gaza who feared the opposite outcome: indefinite closure.

Maher Abu Sabha, head of Gaza’s border crossings, explained the reason for such worries.

“On Aug. 5, unidentified gunman attacked an Egyptian military checkpoint near the Rafah crossing, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers. Immediately, many Israeli and Egyptian journalists wrote that Palestinians had committed the attack.”

Also immediately after the attacks – the perpetrators of which remain unknown – Egypt ordered the Rafah crossing closed.

“Just over a week later, near the end of Ramadan, the border reopened for three days for humanitarian cases needing to travel to or via Egypt, and for Palestinians needing to return to Gaza,” said Abu Sabha.

With no clear border procedure yet defined by Egyptian authorities, Palestinians in Gaza are wondering whether the border crossing will remain less restrictive, as it became after Mohammed Mursi was elected Egypt’s new president, or whether it will devolve to the Mubarak days of heavy restrictions and constant closures.

Abu Sabha says nothing is yet clear. “We’re still waiting for confirmation from Egyptian authorities on what exactly the procedure will be at the Rafah crossing.” Yet, he says that relations between Gaza’s Palestinian authorities and those of the Mursi government are very good.

“Prime Minister Haniyeh (Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister from the Hamas party in Gaza) has visited with Mr. Mursi. They have good relations and there is talk of positive developments for the border and of President Mursi’s promise that Rafah crossing will be open 12 hours every day,” says Abu Sabha.

After Hamas was democratically elected in 2006, and in tandem with implementation of the Israeli-led total siege of Gaza, the Rafah crossing border procedures became as trying and impossible as when Israel physically and militarily occupied the Gaza Strip.

Israeli rights group Gisha reported that from June 2007 to March 2009, Rafah crossing was closed permanently “except for random and limited openings by Egypt, which meet only 3 percent of the needs of the residents of the Gaza Strip to enter and leave.”

“During the hardest years of the ongoing siege of Gaza, Rafah was closed indefinitely. When it did sporadically open, only at most 400 could leave,” says Maher Abu Sabha. “Mubarak was one of the key reasons for Gaza’s closure by the Egyptian side. Since he has been replaced, more people have been able to cross in and out of Gaza via Rafah.

“The Rafah crossing is like no other,” says Abu Sabha. “Other borders around the world, and even other Egyptian borders, are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no holidays. But Rafah closes Fridays and holidays and is only open from 10 am to 6 pm. It also differs from other borders because it is Palestinians’ only real door to the outside world.”

In 2000, Israel closed Gaza’s sole airport; Israeli bombings in 2001 destroyed it.

Under international law, Palestinians, like any people, have the right to leave and enter their country, “a basic right, which the parties who exert control over Rafah crossing are obligated to respect and safeguard,” Gisha notes.

Mazen Aiysh, 35, en route to Jordan to visit family, reiterates Abu Sabha’s words. “Our situation is different from anyone else’s, that’s obvious. Any other nationality can come and go as they like, but we can’t. It’s my right to leave my country to see my family, to travel, to go other places.”

Also exiting, Iman Salim, 58, says her return home to Jordan was delayed. “I was supposed to leave before today but wasn’t able to because the border closed. The attack that happened in Egypt has nothing to do with us, but we were punished nonetheless.”

Still waiting for the final word from Egypt, Abu Sabha is optimistic. “I hope that the Rafah crossing is opened for 24 hours a day, like borders anywhere else in the world, and that goods which are banned under the Israeli siege may be permitted to enter and exit through Rafah.”

Although happy to be reunited with his wife, Jaber does not share the optimism. “All of this control and these political games are to make our lives difficult and to destroy our will to live. No one actually wants to solve our problem.”

With more restrictions placed on the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, and access to the Palestinian territory’s smuggling tunnels increasingly blocked, human rights groups say Gaza’s 1.6 million residents are unfairly being punished for the attack on an Egyptian military base in Sinai.

“Until now, there are no names of anybody from Gaza that have been made public as having committed the crime,” Wael Al-Qarra from the Gaza-based Al Dameer Association for Human Rights, told IPS. “But on the other side, we have been immediately put under punishment. Immediately. We, the people, the civilians, the citizens of Gaza, are the ones who are punished for what is happening.”

On Aug. 5, an unknown armed group killed 16 Egyptian border guards in the northern Sinai peninsula, before storming the Israeli border. In response, hundreds of Egyptian troops have been deployed to the area to tackle militant groups. It is the largest Egyptian military presence in Sinai in decades.

Following the attack, the nearby Gaza Strip was almost entirely sealed, with the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed and many Palestinians stranded on either side.

Following the attack, the nearby Gaza Strip was almost entirely sealed, with the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt only briefly operating in one direction on Aug. 10 to allow Palestinians to return home.

“Many people came from outside for vacation and they have to get back to their work, but now the border is closed and they cannot go back. There are students who need to get back to their universities. So imagine the problem now that is being caused,” Al-Qarra said.

As the only entry and exit point for most Palestinians in Gaza, approximately 800 people normally cross the Rafah border each day. Egyptian authorities announced that the border would be opened for another three days starting Aug. 14, and that visa holders, students, medical patients and others with humanitarian concerns would be allowed to cross.

The Egyptian authorities opened the border in one direction for three days, from Aug. 10-13, and in both directions on Aug. 14.

Over 4,000 Palestinians were able to cross from Egypt back into Gaza, and almost 800 others – visa holders, students, medical patients and others with humanitarian concerns – were able to leave Gaza.

Hundreds of smuggling tunnels into Gaza were also closed as a means, according to the Egyptian authorities, to prevent anyone involved in the Sinai attack from sneaking in and out of the Strip.

But for Palestinians in Gaza, closing the tunnels – which act as the primary lifeline to the besieged territory and provide residents with necessary goods and services – proved just how reliant they are on this unstable system.

Egypt also said that the decision to close hundreds of smuggling tunnels into Gaza is meant to prevent anyone involved in the attack from sneaking in and out of the Strip.

But Palestinians in Gaza are concerned that closing the tunnels – which act as the primary lifeline to the besieged territory and provide residents with necessary goods and services – will soon re-ignite food shortages and the fuel crisis that has plagued their daily lives over the last year.

“There is no serious shortage of food items to date, but it could happen within the next week because 70 percent of the total needs are dependent on the smuggling procedure,” said Khalil Shaheen, director of the Economic and Social department at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza.

“This illegal procedure, the tunnels, was an urgent solution for an exceptional situation. But nowadays, we have become dependent on the tunnels, mainly on imports, and that has reflected in a negative way on the Gazan economy. We are dependent on the tunnels with a very bad quality of goods and with high prices, as well,” Shaheen told IPS.

The Gaza Strip has been under stringent Israeli-imposed restrictions since 2007, shortly after Hamas, an Islamic movement considered by the United States, Israel and the European Union to be a terrorist organisation, was elected.

Internal Israeli documents released that same year revealed that Israel uses mathematical formulas to determine the amount of goods and services allowed to enter Gaza, from canned tuna, rice and beans to gas, wood and other construction materials.

Israel justifies the strict restrictions as necessary in its fight against Hamas; in 2007, Dov Weisglass, advisor to then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert reportedly said, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not make them die of hunger.”

The restrictions have caused a severe energy crisis in Gaza in recent months, with power cuts lasting up to 12 hours a day due to a shortage of fuel. In June, Qatar began shipping fuel to Gaza – 30 million litres of Qatari fuel was expected over a three-month period – through Egypt and Israel to ease the situation.

As a result, in early August, the Gaza power plant operated all four of its turbines for the first time since 2006. On Aug. 8, however, after the Sinai attack, the plant was forced to shut down one turbine, which once again led to electricity cuts. After the Sinai attack, however, the plant was forced to shut down two turbines, which caused electricity cuts lasting up to 16 hours per day.

The plant requires 3.5 million litres of fuel each week to operate at full capacity.

Shaheen said that while the smuggling tunnels into Gaza help provide for the needs of the local population, the international community must intervene in order to lift the Israeli siege and wean Gazans off their reliance on the unstable tunnel system.

“We are asking the international community to convince the Israeli occupation authorities to lift the siege and the illegal closure. That’s part of the legal obligations of the occupying power: to offer all the basic needs for the civilians that are under occupation. Israel must allow more supplies, mainly for construction materials, and basic needs like medical supplies, vaccinations and food items.”

Tightly sealed for years under Mubarak, Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza may soon be open for business. Credit: Adam Morrow/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 31 2012 (IPS)

With the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s first-ever freely elected president, the Gaza file – especially as it pertains to Egypt’s border with the besieged enclave – is fast becoming one of the new president’s first major foreign policy challenges.

“Morsi knows that the Gaza issue is intimately linked to Egypt’s relations with Israel and the U.S.,” Tarek Fahmi, director of the Israel desk at the Cairo-based National Centre for Middle East Studies told IPS. “He understands well that any unilateral change to the status quo on the Egypt-Gaza border would have serious international repercussions, for which Egypt isn’t currently prepared.”

Therefore, Fahmi added, the new president “is likely to tread very, very cautiously on the issue.”

In May of last year, three months after Mubarak’s ouster, the closure of Egypt’s border with Gaza – first imposed by the Mubarak regime in 2007 – was eased slightly in a nod to post-revolution public pressure. A limited number of passengers from the strip were allowed to pass through the Rafah international border crossing, albeit only during certain hours and on certain days.

The crossing was, however, kept firmly closed to anything resembling commercial traffic. The flow of desperately needed commodities from outside – including foodstuffs, fuel and cement (the latter being necessary to rebuild the strip’s infrastructure, largely destroyed during Israel’s 2008/2009 war on the enclave) – continued to rely on subterranean tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

In the months following last year’s Tahrir Square uprising, the complete opening of the Rafah crossing to all forms of traffic had been one of the political demands voiced by a number of Egyptian revolutionary groups. The country, however, was soon convulsed by domestic political upheaval, which included days-long street battles between the army and protesters, along with hard-fought parliamentary and presidential elections. The festering Gaza issue was relegated to the backburner.

But Morsi’s election in hotly contested June presidential polls appears to have brought the issue back to the fore. In statements made shortly before his election, Morsi, a long-time member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Palestinian resistance group Hamas is a loose affiliate, stated that “the time has come to open the Rafah crossing to traffic 24 hours a day and all year round.”

Recent statements emanating from Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, certainly suggest that a major change at the border is imminent.

On Jul. 13, two week’s after Morsi’s inauguration, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal expressed confidence that, along with “protecting the Gaza Strip from any would-be Israeli aggression,” Egypt’s new president “will open the border and end the commercial siege of the strip.”

On the same day, Ismail Heniya, head of the Hamas-run Gaza government, also voiced that confidence that Egypt under Morsi “would never provide cover for any new (Israeli) aggression on the Gaza Strip,” in a clear reference to the policies of Egypt’s ousted Mubarak regime. Nor would a Morsi-led Egypt, Heniya added, “continue to take part in the siege on Gaza.”

Statements by officials from the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) likewise suggest that the days of the five-year-old border closure are drawing to a close.

“The FJP believes that Israel’s oppressive siege of the Gaza Strip must be eased and that Egypt’s participation (in the siege) must end,” leading FJP member Saad al-Husseini told IPS. “Egypt must take a firm position vis-à-vis Israel in this regard.”

Al-Husseini added that the FJP – which controls roughly half the seats in the lower house of Egypt’s (currently dissolved) parliament – had “no objections to opening the Rafah crossing to both passengers and commercial traffic, or even establishing a free-trade zone.”

But in light of geo-political realities – namely, Israeli and U.S. opposition to the notion of relaxing pressure on Hamas – some analysts believe that Morsi will adopt an extremely gradualist approach to the issue.

“Morsi is likely to run into resistance from Egypt’s deeply-entrenched intelligence apparatus, which views the Gaza border file as a security, political and intelligence issue, over which it – not the president – has jurisdiction,” said Fahmi.

Initially at least, Fahmi added, Morsi “is only likely to take a series of half-measures aimed at the gradual easing of restrictions on cross-border traffic.”

On Jul. 23, new procedures came into effect allowing Palestinians entering Egypt from Gaza to stay in the country for up to 72 hours. Previously, Palestinians under the age of 40 entering Egypt had been escorted by Egyptian security personnel directly from the border to the airport. Egyptian security feared their possible affiliation with Hamas.

On Saturday, Jul. 28, Heniya, having met with Morsi two days earlier, said that the latter had agreed to “several measures” aimed at improving conditions in the Gaza Strip. These included increasing the Rafah crossing’s working hours to 12 per day and raising the daily limit on passengers from Gaza to 1,500.

Fahmi predicts that Morsi will also eventually open talks with other parties involved aimed at eventually opening the border up to commercial traffic.

“Morsi can’t just unilaterally open the Rafah crossing to commercial traffic without first discussing it with other relevant parties, namely, Israel and the (West Bank-based) Palestinian Authority,” he said.

“If the new president makes any serious changes in terms of Egypt’s Gaza policy, he will likely make them later on down the road,” Fahmi added. “But he will not make any dramatic moves in the short term while Egypt is facing so many domestic crises, political and otherwise.”

The FJP’s al-Husseini appeared to confirm this.

“Strategic decisions (like those regarding the Gaza border) aren’t the president’s to make alone,” he said. “Opening the crossing to commercial traffic, and thus ending the longstanding siege on Gaza, requires careful study of the political, economic and security-related implications of such a move.”