ASHKELON: European monitors are ready to resume their assignment on the Gaza-Egypt border at a moment s notice, following an involuntary 20-month break, the head of the mission said.
In the past two weeks, 20 monitors returned to the region amid reports of progress on a Palestinian power-sharing agreement and an Israel-Hamas prisoner swap – prerequisites for reopening the Gaza-Egypt border. For months, the European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) had operated with a scaled-back staff of 18.
We are waiting for all parties to agree, mission chief Col. Alain Faugeras said in an interview Friday.
The European monitors were deployed at the Rafah passenger terminal between Gaza and Egypt as part of a 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas. The monitors were to reassure Israel that weapons and militants wouldn t get into Gaza after its pullout from the territory in the fall of 2005.
However, the monitors withdrew in June 2007, following Hamas takeover of Gaza.
The terminal is Gaza s only gate to the world and can t operate without the monitors. Israel also closed its crossings with Gaza after the Hamas takeover, further isolating the territory.
The EU shuns Hamas as a terror group. This means the monitors can t return to the border unless Hamas reaches a power-sharing agreement with Abbas that allows his troops to take up positions on the border. Previous unity talks failed, but a new round of talks is to begin Wednesday in Egypt, Palestinian officials said Saturday.
The European monitors are based at a hotel in the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. The hotel s second floor is fully booked with offices for the monitors. Faugeras took up his post three months ago.
Palestinian officials have criticized the monitors for being based in Israel, rather than in Egypt.
In the year before the 2007 Hamas takeover, the Rafah terminal was closed most days because Israel kept back the monitors for unspecified security reasons. The frequent closures were seen as a means of Israeli pressure on Hamas, who captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in June 2006. Shalit is to be freed in a swap for hundreds of Palestinian detainees.
Faugeras said he was open to the idea of being based in the Egyptian border town of El Arish, instead of in Ashkelon, if the monitors resume their mission.
We have to be flexible and adapt to the new situation, he said.
