Egypt opens sealed Gaza crossing as goodwill gesture before Ramadan

[pelsar]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1016527.html

oops....i thought israel didnt allow them to do that.....damn those egyptians, not listening to their israeli masters, there will be repercussions....perhaps israel will bomb them, tell the US to cut off their aid (those are just the two actions that i remember that israel was supposed to do to egypt if they dared to defy israel....as mentioned here on the DU)

[Cassandra]

1. The last time they opened up their side of Gaza...

for humanitarian relief (allowing Palestinians access to food), some of the Palestinians immediately started setting up gun emplacements on Egyptian soil, which is rude, to say the least. The Egyptian government then asked for Israel's help in sealing the crossing. This was relayed to me by an Egyptian friend who reads Egyptian newspapers.

[shaayecanaan]

2. The agreement between Israel and Egypt regarding the Rafah crossing...

requires EU monitors to be present whenever the crossing is opened. Since the body of EU monitors, known as EUBAM, is based in Ashkelon, they effectively require Israel's assistance to attend at the crossing in Rafah. Since Gilad Shalit was captured, for the most part Israel has withheld that assistance, and the crossing has remained closed, apart from occasions when Israel has given often only a few hours notice to EUBAM that it intends to allow the crossing to be opened. It should be noted that the EU itself objected to the Hamas takeover and suspended its operations following that event, but their policy since has been to do the task of monitoring the crossing whenever Israel permits it.

One of the live issues regarding the crossing is that Hamas wants EUBAM to be based in either Gaza or Egyptian Rafah so that Israel would no longer be able to impede the operation of the crossing by preventing the monitors from attending.

I cannot deduce from the article whether the monitors will be present or not for these two days, and it would be interesting to find out. EUBAM's website gives no indication one way or the other.