On Wednesday 23rd January, thousands of Gazans made a brief escape to Rafah, Egypt, in order to eat and buy those products they are short of.
The million and a half residents of Gaza still depend almost entirely on importation of goods through crossings which are controlled by Israel. These crossings have been closed for the past eight months leaving Gazans without food.
The border breakthrough was made possible because Hamas militants had mined sections of the barrier separating the Strip from Egypt. In an article written for the weekly Italian magazine, l’Internazionale, of this week (February 1-7), Amira Haas, an Israeli journalist living in the Palestinian territory, reports that the plan was to blow the barrier as a last resort strategy. Following reopening of negotiations with Al Fatah or a request from Cairo to open the Rafah crossing, the Hamas militants would have blown the barrier to show the unsustainability of the Israeli siege and defy Israel. Yet, Amira Haas points out that the reopening of negotiations between Hamas and Al Fatah or a request from Cairo to open the Rafah crossing require other strategies and signs of civilian disobedience than firing rockets. Amira Hamas carries on calling onto governing authority in Ramallah to listen to the voice of Palestinians, and not to the requests from the Unites States, the European Union and Israel to boycott Hamas.
There is currently concern amongst Israeli human rights organizations (http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20080124.asp) that Israel will step up punitive measures against the population in response to the border breakthrough. In the meantime, the temporary border break brought some relief to Gazans.
