This just made my day . In a way, it reminds me of the story of when the jews escaped from egypt. Oh, the irony. Here's the news:
Tens of Thousands Flee Gaza for Egypt
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Masked gunmen destroyed about two-thirds of the metal wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the town of Rafah and tens of thousands of Palestinians poured across the border to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.
The gunmen began breaching the border wall dividing Rafah before dawn, according to witnesses and Hamas officials, who told The Associated Press that they had closed all but two of the gaps in the wall. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said they were allowed free movement through the open gaps.
Thousands of Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel, the Hamas officials and witnesses said.
An Associated Press reporter arrived after first light and saw that about two-thirds of the seven-mile-long wall at Rafah had been demolished. The reporter also saw the crowd of Palestinians crossing into Egypt swell into the tens of thousands.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Masked gunmen blew holes in the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt early Wednesday and thousands of Palestinians poured across the border to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.
Egyptian guards and police from the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, stood by without taking action.
Israel transferred fuel to restart Gaza's only electricity plant Tuesday, easing its five-day blockade of the Palestinian territory amid growing international concern about a humanitarian crisis.
But before dawn the next day, Palestinian gunmen began breaching the border wall dividing the town of Rafah, which has a Gazan and an Egyptian side.
The identity of the gunmen who breached the border was not immediately clear. But Hamas expressed support for the move, saying, "Blowing up the border wall with Egypt is a reflection of the ... catastrophic situation which the Palestinian people in Gaza are living through due to the blockade."
Hamas security closed all but two of the holes, through which it allowed free movement. Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel.
Gazan Ibrahim Abu Taha, 45, a father of seven, was in the Egyptian section of Rafah with his two brothers and $185 in his pocket.
"We want to buy food, we want to buy rice and sugar, milk and wheat and some cheese," Abu Taha told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that he would also buy cheap Egyptian cigarettes.
Abu Taha said he could get such items in Gaza, but at three times the cost.
Faced with a crippling Israeli blockade, Hamas appears to be applying pressure on Egypt, which has cooperated with Israel's sanctions by keeping the Rafah border closed.
An off-duty Hamas security officer who identified himself as Abdel Rahman, 29, said this was his first time out of Gaza.
"I can smell the freedom," he said by phone. "We need no border after today."
Abdel Rahman said no weapons were being smuggled in from Egypt.
"You can buy weapons in Gaza, guns and RPGs," he said, adding that it was easier to find weapons in Gaza than cancer medicine or Coke.
Weapons are generally brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
The U.S. had warned Israel not to add to the hardship for ordinary Palestinians but blamed the problem on Hamas. Israel imposed the siege in response to increasing rocket attacks on its border communities by Gaza militants.
Despite the easing of the closure, Palestinian militants fired 19 rockets toward Israel on Tuesday, the military said, up from just two on Monday.
The lights were back on in most of Gaza City by Tuesday afternoon after a blackout that lasted almost two days. But Gazans still vented their anger throughout the day.
Hundreds of Hamas supporters briefly broke through the Gaza-Egypt border and clashed with Egyptian riot police who fired in the air, wounding 70 people on both sides. The protesters hurled insults at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, calling him a coward.
In a clash early Wednesday with Israeli forces near the closed Sufa crossing into Gaza, a Hamas militant was killed, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military said soldiers exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in the area.
Throughout the closure, which cut power to a third of Gaza's 1.5 million people, hospitals kept running on generators. But most bakeries shut down, and long lines formed at those that were open. A shipment of cooking gas sent in by Israel on Tuesday sold out in an hour.
Governments, aid agencies and the U.N. issued urgent appeals for an end to the closure. Israel's Defense Ministry ruled late Tuesday that 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be transferred into Gaza daily, but the crossings will remain closed to other goods and people until further notice.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni blamed Hamas.
"I am not among those who care whether this or that group fired a rocket," she told the annual Herzliya Conference on security. "Hamas has control of the territory, and Hamas is responsible."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration has spoken to Israeli officials "about the importance of not allowing a humanitarian crisis to unfold." Israeli officials were receptive, she said, adding that she too blames Hamas for the situation.
Despite the blockade, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he will not pull out of peace talks. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised President Bush to try to complete a peace accord this year.
"We should intensify our contacts and our meetings to stop the suffering of our people," Abbas said in his first comment since the latest round of Israel-Hamas fighting erupted last week.
Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is not a party to the talks.
Associated Press writers Steven Gutkin in Herzliya, Israel, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank,
contributed to this report.
By Adam Entous
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel wants to cut its links with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip after militants blasted open the territory's border with Egypt in defiance of an Israeli blockade, Israel's deputy defence minister said on Thursday.
Israel, which occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005 but still controls its northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters, and has imposed a blockade it says is meant to counter militant rocket fire.
Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel wanted to wash its hands of Gaza altogether by handing over the supply of electricity, water and medicine to others. An Israeli security official said Egypt should take over responsibility.
"We need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it. So we want to disconnect from it," Vilnai said.
A spokesman for Hamas, which seized control of Gaza after routing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah forces in June, said Israel was not exempt from responsibility "since the Gaza Strip is still an occupied land."
An aide to Abbas said the Israeli idea could be aimed at permanently severing Gaza from the occupied West Bank, the other territory Palestinians seek for an eventual state.
Militants set off bombs on Wednesday destroying Gaza's southern border wall in the town of Rafah, where Egyptian forces are posted, and allowing tens of thousands of Palestinians to pour through to stock up on goods in short supply.
SHOPPING
Hundreds of Palestinians continued to shuttle back and forth across the border on Thursday. A Hamas spokesman said the Islamist group had paid 16,000 government employees early, and paid an aid stipend to 8,500 farmers so they could go shopping.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri urged Arab nations to step up aid to Gaza as long as Israel, which has allowed some fuel into the territory but still blocks most goods, maintained its blockade.
Market stalls in Gaza City that were half empty earlier this week were piled high with goods while prices that had shot higher due to shortages eased back.
Israel tightened its cordon around the Gaza Strip this week, briefly stopping fuel supplies to the territory's only power station and blocking aid shipments as part of a campaign it said was meant to prevent cross-border rocket attacks.
The Jewish state drew censure from the European Union and international agencies, which described the move as "collective punishment" for Gaza's 1.5 million residents.
An Israeli security official said Israel wanted Egypt to supply Gaza's utilities and act as a base for aid organizations serving the territory, adding the government was working on proposals to shift responsibility to Cairo.
"De facto, the Palestinians in Gaza are increasingly depending on Egypt for their needs. And that's what we want," the official told Reuters. Egypt controlled Gaza until the 1967 war.
A senior aide to Abbas, who is pursuing a peace deal with Israel and is under pressure to rein in militants, said he was "not happy" his Islamist rivals could now easily enter Egypt.
Hamas and other militant groups have been using a network of underground tunnels to smuggle weapons and explosives into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
But another Abbas aide described Israel's proposal for total disengagement from Gaza as "an old plan aimed at severing Gaza from the whole Palestinian body," a reference to the occupied West Bank.
Abbas is trying to negotiate an agreement with Israel to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank -- where he holds sway -- and Gaza, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital. Hamas's control of the coastal enclave poses a major obstacle for the U.S.-backed peace drive.
Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has suggested Abbas's Palestinian Authority control Gaza's main crossings -- a proposal the United States has said must first be cleared with Israel, which has so far rebuffed the idea.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Wafa Amr and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah; Writing by Rebecca Harrison
This way they can bomb it officially as well.
Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:23 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8249 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Is anyone else disturbed that they destroyed something our tax dollars paid for?
Friday, 25 January 2008, 14:07 GMT
Palestinians have used a bulldozer to make a new hole in the border wall between Gaza and Egypt, allowing scores of people to pass through. Eyewitnesses describe the situation as volatile, and say the frontier remains porous for kilometres at a stretch.
Earlier Egyptian security forces tried to block almost all illegal entry points, using water cannon and firing warning shots to drive back crowds.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, says it backs the decision to close the border.
Hundreds of thousands have surged into Egypt to buy supplies since militants first blew holes in the border on Wednesday.
Israel has demanded Egypt take action, as it is worried about arms smuggling.
Map of the Egypt-Gaza border area
The UN has estimated that as much as half of Gaza's 1.5 million population has crossed the border in defiance of the Israeli blockade imposed in retaliation for rocket attacks.
Barbed wire
The large yellow bulldozer was driven to the border from the Gaza side, ploughing headlong into the border fence.
The BBC's Ian Pannell at the border says Egyptian security forces seem to have given up their efforts to stop the Palestinians streaming through.
The incident is a humiliating setback for Cairo, which must now decide how to respond, our correspondent says.
The new breach came hours after Egyptian security forces had begun to stop Palestinians from entering their country while at the same time allowing people back into Gaza.
Riot police armed with electric batons attempted to seal the breach, while water cannons were aimed above the heads of the jostling crowd after some Palestinians threw stones.
Live shots were also fired from both sides.
Egyptian border guards meanwhile began placing piles of barbed wire and chain-link fences along the border in an attempt to re-seal it.
Those returning from Egypt said police had been using loudspeakers to announce in several nearby towns that the border would be resealed later in the afternoon.
Hamas, the Islamist movement which seized control of Gaza in June, has said it supports Egypt's decision to close the border. It has denied any involvement in the new breach.
But unless the group agrees to help police the border, it will be very difficult to keep it closed, the BBC's Ian Pannell in Rafah says.
The move by the Egyptian authorities came only hours after the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, urged them to secure the border with Gaza.
On Thursday evening, Ms Rice said she understood Egypt's position was "difficult", but said: "It is an international border, it needs to be protected and I believe that the Egyptians understand the importance of doing that."
Later, Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki promised the border would "go back as normal".
Heightened alert
Israel has stepped up its security since the border fence was destroyed, with citizens warned against travelling to the Sinai peninsula in Egypt.
A spokesman for public security minister Avi Dichter told the Associated Press news agency that police were on increased alert, because of "intelligence warnings that terrorists will infiltrate Israel".
It is also worried that militant groups based in Gaza will have taken advantage of the freedom of movement to bolster their weapons stores.
Overnight on Thursday, the Israeli military carried out two air strikes near the border, killing four suspected Hamas militants.
The commander of the Islamist movement's military wing in Rafah, Mohammed Abu Harb, was killed along with another senior militant when Israeli missiles hit their jeep in the town, Palestinian medics said.
Another two other members of the group were killed two hours earlier in an Israeli air strike on a truck in southern Rafah.
Israel has killed more than 40 Palestinians in Gaza during the past 10 days in addition to tightening its blockade of the coastal territory, which has been used by militants to fire rockets into the Jewish state.
It is amusing to watch the politicians scramble to defend their fictional borders, and the difficulty they have in deciding how to enforce them. Note how Hamas wants to re-establish the wall...why would they want to do that?
The person who said this either knows the truth or is learning it:
Quote:
"I can smell the freedom," he said by phone. "We need no border after today."
Do we need borders? Do we need countries?
Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:14 am
madthumbs
Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 8249 Location: Fingerlakes - NY usa
Humanitarian Impact of Israel's Blockade in Gaza
Quote:
Gaza's 1.5 million residents are struggling to cope without electricity and other basic necessities on the fourth day of an Israeli blockade.
Hospitals have begun to run short of fuel for generators, and sewage has spilled out onto the streets.
From the youtube post:
Quote:
Gaza's 1.5 million residents are struggling to cope without electricity and other basic necessities on the fourth day of an Israeli blockade.
Hospitals have begun to run short of fuel for generators, and sewage has spilled out onto the streets.
Egypt started to close its breached border with the Gaza Strip on Friday but Palestinian militants bulldozed a new opening in a challenge to Cairo and Israel's blockade of the Hamas-run territory.
Palestinian crowds cheered as Hamas militants used a bulldozer to flatten sections of the chain and concrete fence. In a scene broadcast live on television around the world, Egyptian riot police watched from a distance as hundreds of people poured into Egypt.
Israeli air strikes overnight killed four Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where Hamas blasted open the border wall on Wednesday, letting tens of thousands rush across to stock up on goods in short supply in the impoverished strip, home to 1.5 million people.
Violence has also flared in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager one day after Palestinian militants killed an Israeli border policeman and infiltrated a Jewish settlement near Bethlehem.
Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for the infiltration in which the two Palestinian attackers were killed.
The fall of the Rafah wall punched a new hole in a U.S.-backed campaign to curb the clout of Hamas and strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, nearly eight months after the Islamist group routed Abbas's Fatah forces in Gaza.
Israel said it had tightened its Gaza blockade last week to counter cross-border rocket fire, but after an international outcry, fuel and aid supplies were partially restored.
Israeli officials said Abbas, whose authority is largely limited to the West Bank, planned to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, seeking to push on with newly re-launched peace talks despite the setbacks.
Pressed by the United States and Israel to take control of the situation, Egyptian forces in riot gear lined the border and began placing barbed wire and chain-link fences to prevent more Gazans from entering Egyptian soil.
The Egyptian government faces a difficult balancing act. It does not want to be seen as aiding Israel in its blockade of Gaza, but it fears the spread of Islamic influence and the effects of becoming home to so many undocumented Palestinians.
Citing the breach in Gaza's southern border, some top Israeli officials have advocated cutting Israel's remaining links with the coastal territory and putting the onus on Egypt.
STANDOFF AT BORDER
Tensions flared at the border on Friday as some Palestinians in the crowd threw stones at Egyptian police, who responded with batons and water cannon.
"I have two brothers still inside Egypt. They should not close the border until everyone returns," said one of the Palestinian stone throwers, 20-year-old Mohammed al-Masri.
Egyptian security forces told the crowd over loudspeakers that the border would close at 3 p.m. (1p.m. British time), but a security source said orders had yet to be given to fully seal the area.
Hamas sources said the group decided to open a new section in the border fence to increase pressure on Egypt to give the militant group a say in how the border will be run in future.
Abbas has been seeking U.S. and Israeli support to take over control of all of the border crossings, a move Hamas hopes to prevent.
"We insist and urge our Egyptian brothers that there must be a mechanism to allow the passage of people and goods through the Rafah crossing in a legal and organized manner," Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nono said.
Since militants blew up the wall at Rafah, the border has been transformed into a giant open-air market, selling everything from goats to full size refrigerators.
One Palestinian bought a camel in the Egyptian coastal town of el-Arish for his wedding day and rode it all the way home to Gaza City, a distance of more than 80 km (50 miles).
"I bought a motorcycle, cigarettes, biscuits, corn chips, cheese and a small generator. I think they can close the border now," said 38-year-old Saeed al-Helo after crossing back into Gaza. "I think Gaza has enough food supplies for a month."
Al-Nono said that was not the case. "The crisis in Gaza still exists, both in terms of fuel and electricity. What the merchants brought from Egypt was not enough to compensate for the shortages incurred over the last seven months," he said.
Israel, which occupied Gaza in 1967, pulled troops and settlers out in 2005, but it still controls the strip's northern and eastern borders, airspace and coastal waters.
Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel wanted to hand responsibility for electricity, water and medicine supplies over to others.
. In a way, it reminds me of the story of when the jews escaped from egypt. Oh, the irony. 
Here's the news:
