CAIRO: Israel has remained silent on Egypt’s decision to allow some 100 Hamas loyalists to return straight to the Gaza Strip through a crossing in Rafah, bypassing Israeli territory.
Egypt allowed the return of the Palestinians stranded in Egypt since last June back into Gaza through a small crossing for military vehicles in Rafah early Saturday
Israel has not yet released an official response leading to speculation about whether or not they were aware of the maneuver beforehand.
The Israeli embassy in Cairo could not be reached for comment at press time.
The New York Times quoted an Israeli official from the department that oversees the Gaza crossings, Shlomo Dror, as saying that Israel had “heard from the Egyptians that the Palestinians had broken through the fence straddling the border.
This contradicts eyewitness accounts which saw the Palestinians transported in buses across the border where they were picked up by Hamas security forces in Gaza. Dror did not discount that another Israeli department might have had prior knowledge of the event.
The newspaper also reported that some of those returning to Gaza were actually affiliated to Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, according to a Hamas spokesman. “They are not people we would have been eager to let in, Dror said.
Some believe that coordination with Israel was necessary for the operation to take place.
“Can Egypt return them to Gaza without tacit Israeli understanding? asked Israeli Studies expert at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Abdel-Alim Mohamed. “Probably not.
Conventionally, border issues are almost always approached in tandem between Egypt and Israel, and generally for any side to take action, there has been a history of coordination with the other side.
“And if they entered Gaza what’s the problem? Mohamed told Daily News Egypt, “Israel lives with Hamas and they have declared Gaza an enemy entity so what difference does another one hundred people make?
The stranded Palestinians crossed the border at round 3 am on Saturday, according to the Tagammu party representative in North Sinai Alaa Al-Kashef. He previously told Daily News Egypt that some of the people being transported had maintained contact with him until they crossed the border.
Al-Kashef said that some of the Hamas members residing in Al-Arish, about 20 km from Rafah on the border with Gaza, called him at around 1:30 am and informed him they were told to get into buses that would transport them back to Gaza through a land crossing in Rafah.
This was not the main Rafah terminal, which has been closed since clashes between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza kicked off last June, but a smaller Israeli-made crossing for armored vehicles to leave and enter Gaza.
Neither Egypt nor Hamas have commented on the return or the decision behind it but Al-Kashef believes that the deal was carried out by Egyptian intelligence, and an intelligence communications officer was the one who oversaw the crossing.
Hamas spokesman Taher El-Nunu told AFP, “There was an accord between the [Hamas] government of Ismail Haniyah and the Egyptian side, which allowed these people to re-enter.
According to Reuters, Hamas sources said that a deal had been struck between Egypt and Hamas for the return of the prisoners.
Meanwhile Israel was to release 87 Palestinian prisoners today as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmoud Abbas during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and ahead of a US-sponsored peace conference. Buses carrying the prisoners, all men and two minors among them, were due to drive out of Ketziot prison in southern Israel around 0430 GMT towards checkpoints with the occupied West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
One boy was wounded when Israeli troops opened fire toward hundreds of Palestinians gathered at the crossing in order to separate them, medical sources and witnesses reportedly told AFP.
