Egypt returns Gazans at the Rafah crossing

By Hanan Awarekeh
 
Gaza, 2008 Jan 22, Al-Manar 

At least five people were wounded on Tuesday when a Palestinian protest at Gaza's Rafah border crossing turned violent when the Egyptian forces fired on the demonstrators.
 
Gunfire erupted as helmeted Egyptian security forces were trying to push back hundreds of Palestinian protestors, many of them women, who were trying to force their way to the Egyptian side of the crossing. At least four Palestinians were wounded in the clashes, medics said. One Egyptian policeman was also injured, a security source said.
 
Several bloodied people were rushed from the scene on stretchers and wailing ambulances whisked them away, but the extent of their injuries was not immediately clear. Dozens of Palestinians managed to break through to the Egyptian side of the crossing - Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses the Zionist Occupied Palestine. 

The protest started earlier on Tuesday with mostly women and young people gathering at the crossing, demanding to be let into Egypt amid a punishing Israeli blockade on the territory. The Egyptian security forces detained dozens of them after using water cannon to try to prevent them from breaking through.
 
A security forces said on Tuesday the group of 40 women and 10 youths was returned to Gaza after they managed to break through the only crossing bypassing the occupied territories during the confusion following the use of water cannon to disperse them.

Egyptian security forces fired gun shots in the air, however several Palestinians were injured. They were taken back to Gaza on stretchers.
 
The demonstration came as the Zionist regime eased a blockade of the Hamas-run territory on the fifth day of the lockdown by allowing limited deliveries of fuel to enter the impoverished coastal strip.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the only crossing that bypasses the occupied territories. With only a few exceptions, it has been closed since Hamas seized power in the walled-off coastal strip in June.
 
On Tuesday, two trucks carrying cooking gas and three with diesel for generators passed through the Nahal Oz border crossing, east of Gaza City, witnesses said. It marked the first time supplies had entered Gaza since late on Thursday, when the Zionist  occupation regime's War Minister Ehud Barak ordered the coastal strip sealed off.
 
The lockdown forced the closure of Gaza's sole power plant, which plunged entire blocks of Gaza City into darkness and sparked warnings of a humanitarian crisis in a territory whose 1.5 million inhabitants are largely dependent on foreign aid. With the resumed easing of the blockade expected to take time to restore supplies, crowds once again formed outside the few bakeries in Gaza City that managed to scrape together enough fuel to keep their generators running.
 
The easing of the blockade was welcomed by Hamas politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal from his base in Damascus. Mashaal stressed however that the resistance movement remained committed to the armed struggle against the Zionist occupation regime.