BEIRUT: More than 200 people staged a sit-in outside the Egyptian embassy in Beirut on Friday to demand that Cairo open its border with the
densely populated Gaza Strip, currently being blockaded by Israel.
We are here to hand over to diplomats a letter for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak demanding that the frontier be opened because of the inhumane conditions inside Gaza, Mohamed Yassin, one of the organizers, told AFP.
Men holding the Quran and women with pictures of Palestinian children killed by Israeli raids took part in the protest outside the embassy, which was guarded by Lebanese police.
The Palestinian people are being subjected to an inhumane blockade unequalled in human history, said the letter addressed to Mubarak.
It is inadmissible that Palestine s elder sister Egypt look on at this blockade with crossed arms as the Israelis massacre Palestinians.
The sit-in lasted an hour and ended after the protesters were unable to meet an Egyptian diplomat to deliver the letter.
Egypt s Rafah crossing, the only gateway to Gaza that bypasses Israel, has been mainly closed since the Islamist Hamas movement wrested control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in June.
Israel says its lockdown is aimed at preventing militants inside the densely populated and impoverished Gaza Strip from targeting its territory with makeshift rockets and mortars.
On Jan. 23 Palestinians demolished the border barricades between Gaza and Egypt, sending hundreds of thousands of Gazans flooding into Egypt to stock up on vital supplies.
Egyptian and Hamas forces resealed the frontier on February 4.
On Thursday the United Nations said it had been forced to stop distributing aid to Gaza because there was no fuel available for its trucks.
Israel accuses Hamas of orchestrating a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip to stir international condemnation of the Jewish state. -AFP
