RAFAH: Unidentified gunmen exploded a small bomb near Palestinian police guarding European Union monitors at the Egypt-Gaza border Friday, just after the crossing opened for the first time in a month, Palestinian officials said.
Two Palestinian policemen were injured, but none of the EU monitors was hurt, said Hatem Barhoum, a senior police official in Gaza.
Police responded first by firing into the air and then at the suspects, who were armed with automatic weapons, Barhoum said. A gun battle raged for about 15 minutes, he said.
It was unclear how many gunmen there were, but all of them escaped, Barhoum added.
The incident took place inside the Gaza portion of the border terminal, and was corroborated by witnesses and other Palestinian officials inside the building.
Buses packed with Palestinians were crossing into Egypt on Friday as the Gaza Strip s sole gateway to the world bypassing Israel reopened for two days ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Closed almost entirely for nearly three months, the vital terminal reopened at 8:00 a.m. (06:00 GMT) and was due to remain operational until 5:00 p.m. (15:00 GMT) before opening again Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., an EU official said. Thousands of people could be seen waiting to cross into Egypt, among them students weeks late for university courses abroad, the infirm seeking medical treatment, Muslim pilgrims hoping to get to Saudi Arabia and businessmen. Around 15 to 20 buses so heavily loaded their doors could not be shut, with passengers and baggage piled on to their roofs, could be seen queuing on the Palestinian side alongside a line of people waiting in wheelchairs. Shortly after the terminal opened, an AFP correspondent saw a couple of buses begin very slowly, one by one, to rumble toward Egypt. A toothless, wheelchair-bound 65-year-old Ali Mussa Hamu, who lost one leg due to a tumor and sat with a prosthetic limb in his lap, his bandaged stump sticking out of a hospital gown, was waiting to get to a hospital in Cairo. I was supposed to be there on August 26, the Palestinian said. The Rafah terminal has been closed nearly continuously since late June after militants from Gaza killed two Israeli soldiers and seized a third in a cross-border raid that sparked a massive Israeli military offensive. Pekka Korhola, a spokesman for the EU monitors at the border, said that only students, the sick and pilgrims were being allowed from Gaza into Egypt on Friday, with everyone due to be able to travel on Saturday. There were no restrictions on access from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, however, the EU spokesman said. Korhola estimated that about 1,000 people would exit Gaza through Rafah on Friday, expressing hopes that the crossing would remain open as normal after the initial two-day dispensation agreed by Israel. He said the crossing had been open only seven days for humanitarian reasons since late June. I m two weeks late for school, which started two weeks ago. I wanted to be the first one across, said 21-year-old Rana Saba, trying to fight her way onto an already packed bus, desperate to get back to university in Amman. I study medicine and this is very serious. It ll be hard to catch up, said Sameh Ayesh, a 32-year-old Palestinian medical student who studies in Khartoum who said he was one month late for the start of term. The prolonged closures of the crossing have left thousands stranded on either side of the border amid the persistent Israeli offensive on Gaza. The European Union has deployed observers at Rafah, at the request of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, to monitor agreements on border traffic. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Friday ordered the border crossing to open in the coming days. The Israeli army, however, will decide on this reopening in keeping with the situation on the ground, a ministry spokesman said. Agencies
