Egypt: Gaza Blockade A Failure, Rafah Crossing to Remain Open!!!

After three years of cooperating in the Israeli blockade of Gaza, Egypt said Monday that it will leave its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely for humanitarian aid and restricted travel.

With international pressure building to ease the blockade, an Egyptian security official said sealing off Hamas-ruled Gaza has only bred more militancy.

The decision to ease the restrictions erected by Israel to isolate and punish Hamas comes a week after a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade.'

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Now watch for some Israeli stunt to clamp down on palestinians in general and Gaza in particular

Gazans Cut Through Egypt's Border Barrier

"Every problem has a solution. The Egyptian steel barrier was a problem but we found a solution," says Mohammed, a grimy-faced Gazan tunnel digger who didn't want to give his real name.

Mohammed, covered in dust and dirt, is in the process of digging a 750m (2,460ft) smuggling tunnel from Gaza into Egypt. He says he's been digging it for 18 months.

As he hauls up a plastic container of sand with an electric winch from the metre-wide tunnel shaft, he says the new underground Egyptian barrier aimed at stopping smuggling is a "joke."

"We just cut through it using high-powered oxygen fuelled blow torches," he says.

The Egyptian government says it began constructing the barrier along the Gaza-Egypt border last year. When finished it is meant to be 11km-long (seven miles), stretching down 18m (59ft) underground.

According to Egypt it is made of bomb-proof, super-strength steel and is costing millions of dollars to build.'

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Egypt to Seal Sea Border with Gaza

Egypt is to close its sea border to the Gaza-bound supplies as it reinforces the restrictions against the passage of sustenance into the strip.

Cairo has ordered a port to be built at its maritime border with the Gaza Strip, a security official was quoted by AFP as saying. The security boats there would then "prevent all future attempts to smuggle Palestinian contraband," he added.

The surveillance multiplies the restrictions Cairo has placed along the terrestrial border at a time when the coastal sliver of 1.5-million population continues to suffer from an all-out Israeli-imposed blockade which has deprived it of its basic necessities for almost three years.'

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Palestinians Protest Egyptian Steel Barrier

Palestinians have held a mass demonstration against Egypt's construction of an underground wall along the border with the Gaza Strip which claimed its first victim on Friday.

According to Palestinian security sources, a Palestinian man was killed after a tunnel collapsed over him due to the Egyptian excavation.

During the demonstration, Hamas spokesperson Hammad Ar-Ruqab urged Cairo to open the Rafah border crossing and facilitate the entry of food and construction materials needed to rebuild Gaza which is in ruins due to Israel's war which left thousands of homes destroyed last year.'

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US Helps Egypt Tighten Screws on Gaza

US military experts have presented a detailed plan to Egyptian security officials and donated high-tech equipment to uncover tunnels.

US officials told their Egyptian counterparts that Congress has approved the allocation of $50 million to secure the 13.5-km (8.4-mile) long border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

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Egypt Blocks Relief Convoy to Gaza

Egyptian authorities block a 39-person solidarity convoy carrying medical aid to Gaza and permit only 16 of them to cross the border.

The organizers of the European Hope for Gaza Convoy refused Egypt's offer to allow only part of the group into Gaza, insisting that all 39 members cross, according to Ahmad Al-Kurd, the minister of social affairs in the Gaza government.

Al-Kurd told reporters at the main gate of the Rafah crossing that although Egypt had given assurances to the Palestinian side that the whole convoy will be given access to the Strip, they have changed their decision at the last moment, granting entry to only 16 people

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Netanyahu to Urge Egypt, Jordan to Help Counteract Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will tell Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II at meetings this week that they need to work with Israel to counteract the Iranian nuclear threat.

At the talks, which come before Netanyahu's May 18 meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Netanyahu is expected to brief Arab leaders on preliminary details of Israel's policy toward the Palestinians.

A source close to Netanyahu said on Saturday that the premier would tell Mubarak and Abdullah that the Iranian regime was attempting to use nuclear weapons to impose its agenda on the region, and that it could be stopped by working together

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Aid Rots Outside Gaza

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

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Egypt Opens Rafah Border For Three days

Egypt has partially opened its sole border-crossing with the Gaza strip to allow the passage of a limited number of students and patients.

Hamas official Adel Zurub said Egypt opened the Rafah border around 9 am local time (0700 GMT) Sunday, allowing limited passage for three days, a Press TV correspondent reported.The move would enable family members, doctors and journalists stranded on both sides of the border to cross back.

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Egypt Seizes Aid Supplies for Gaza

Egyptian police on Thursday seized 2,200 tons of food and medical aid destined for the region, AFP reported.

Two members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hossam al-Shurbagi and Kamel al-Shaarawi, were also arrested, accused of 'illegally' storing the food in three warehouses, a security official said. Shurbagi said the aid was being stored pending the reopening of the Rafah border crossing.

"No humanitarian, media or medical delegations will be allowed through, nor will medical aid deliveries be permitted," an Egyptian border official had told AFP.

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Gazan Children Denied Treatment Abroad

For four days running, an ambulance has driven 15-year-old Amira Ghirim from Shifa Hospital in Gaza to the Rafah border in the hope that she will be allowed to cross into Egypt and then on to France, where she has been promised emergency surgery.

Amira’s left arm and thigh were crushed and her internal organs damaged by falling rubble when a shell hit her home in the Tel al Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City in the final days of Israel’s offensive. The attack killed her father, brother and sister, leaving her an orphan.

But, despite her urgent need for surgery, Amira has been turned away at the border each time, said her aunt, Mona Ghirim. "Each morning we arrived at the crossing and the Egyptian soldiers cursed us and told us to go away."

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Tents In Desert Reveal Israeli Plan To Transfer Gazans To Egypt

After flattening many parts of Gaza with aerial bombardment and ground artillery, Israel may be planning to transfer the now homeless refugees to Egypt, where hundreds of tents have been set up near Rafah. One local blogger said that a soldier told him there are many more tents being prepared, as well.

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Egypt Imprisons Anti-Israel Protesters

Egypt has detained more than 60 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in a protest against the Israeli offensive into Gaza.Egyptian police took into custody 47 members of the opposition group on Monday in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour during a protest rally in support of those suffering in Gaza.

Police say the protesters were arrested for "obstructing traffic".

Seventeen members of the group had been detained from their homes before the protest began on suspicion of organizing the demonstration.

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Egypt Seals Gaza Border and Blocks Aid

Egyptian authorities have almost fully sealed the border with Gaza, preventing delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid.

"The government has expressly forbidden the entry of aid convoys laden with food into the Gaza Strip," Emmad al-Din Moustafa, member of the Popular Committee for Aiding Gaza told IPS. "The continued border closure -- like the Israeli assault itself -- constitutes a crime against humanity."

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Egypt Bars Doctors From Entering Gaza Strip

Frustration is mounting at Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip, where many local and foreign doctors are stuck after Egyptian authorities denied them entry into the coastal area now under an Israeli ground invasion.

"That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won't let us; this is crazy," he added.

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