MIDDLE EAST:Egyptian border guards yesterday unrolled bales of razor wire and began to erect a new fence along the border with the Gaza Strip to prevent Palestinians from moving freely in and out of Egypt.
Hamas police on the Gaza side of the frontier co-operated with the Egyptian effort to begin resealing the border and urged Palestinians to return to Gaza. Taxis and lorries continued to carry a decreasing number of passengers and goods from Egypt into Gaza.
Last week more than 700,000 Palestinians rushed into Egypt after armed men brought down the iron wall Israel erected between Gaza and Egypt.
The joint effort proceeded as officials from the EU, US, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas prepared to discuss a new regime for the Rafah terminal. Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas insist the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Gaza should have limited freedom of movement between the strip and Egypt and that Israel must lift its blockade of Gaza.
Cairo asked the Palestinian Authority to resume responsibility for the Rafah facility, Israel indicated it will go along with the proposal, and the EU suggested its monitors, withdrawn last summer after Hamas seized control of the strip, could return.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who mediated the defunct arrangement involving EU and Israeli surveillance of Palestinian Authority operations at the terminal, signalled Washington's support for a resumption of Palestinian Authority immigration control if this will bring "some order" to the situation at Rafah. "We have said that in concept it should be supported." Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo last weekend supported a handover to the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas, however, strongly objects to being excluded from any new regime. The movement's spokesman, Sami Abu-Zuhri, called suggestions for resolving the Rafah issue an "Israeli-led international conspiracy" and said that Hamas "will not allow the return of old conditions at the crossing", which included remote camera monitoring by Israeli intelligence of Palestinians entering and leaving Gaza. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the head of Hamas's Damascus-based politburo, Khaled Mishaal, are expected in Cairo this week for separate talks with Egyptian officials.
Meanwhile, 1,500 Palestinians who have taken refuge in two mosques in the Egyptian city of al-Arish said they would begin a hunger strike today if they were not allowed to leave for countries where they can study or conduct business.
