Hamas seen as gaining as Egypt reseals border

Egypt resealed its besieged gateway to the Gaza Strip on Sunday after rebuffing Hamas’ bid for a hand in controlling the crossing. But analysts said the militant Palestinian group emerged strengthened from the standoff over its breach of the border wall last month.

As barbed wire and metal barricades went up across the Rafah crossing’s only remaining gap, Hamas made a show of cooperating with Egypt’s border guards rather than trying to thwart them. Hamas police beat back Palestinians trying to jump the barrier and arrested others for throwing stones at the guards.

For the 11 days the border was open, the beleaguered Hamas government reaped huge political benefits at home. Its cooped-up constituents poured into Egypt by the hundreds of thousands to unwind, visit relatives and shop for goods made scarce by an Israeli blockade of their coastal enclave.

But Hamas got little immediate payback for ceding the border to Egypt. In talks in Cairo on Saturday, Egypt rejected the militant Islamist group’s main demand: that Hamas get operational control of its side of the Rafah crossing under an arrangement that would ease the blockade.

Egypt’s only known concession was to agree to give visas to hundreds of Palestinians who had crossed the uncontrolled border, enabling them to travel to third countries for work, study or medical care.

Suleiman Awad, a spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said Sunday that Egypt would not permit Palestinians to overrun its border again.

Egypt “has a border, territory and sovereignty, and it is Egypt’s right and duty to preserve that,” he said in remarks quoted by the Egyptian state news agency MENA.

Hamas’ bold action in toppling the border wall, however, improved its leverage over the long term, according to analysts in Israel and Arab countries. In the future it will be more difficult, they predicted, for Egypt, the United States and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to cooperate in helping Israel isolate Gaza’s 1.5 million people and their Islamic rulers.

The blockade has kept Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt closed to travelers and most commerce since June. That is when Hamas, which advocates Israel’s destruction, seized control of the coastal enclave, driving out the Palestinian Authority’s police and border guards.

The blockade was tightened last month in response to near-daily rocket fire from Gaza at Israeli border communities. Israel sharply reduced fuel supplies to Gaza, prompting Hamas militants with explosives to blast down the Egyptian border wall Jan. 23.

“Hamas sent a clear message to everyone: The idea of a hermetically sealed border is now a thing of the past,” said Mouin Rabbani, an independent analyst of Palestinian affairs based in Jordan. “The siege cannot be restored to the extent that it functioned before the breach last month.”

Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader who took part in the Cairo talks, suggested Saturday that the resealing of the border would be temporary while Egypt searched for a formula to open it under international supervision.

Another Gaza official, Bassem Naim, said Hamas had achieved “a common understanding with Egypt” that the border should no longer be subject to Israeli controls.

Egyptian officials would not comment on Hamas’ accounts. But negotiations on a revised border arrangement were underway.

Mubarak discussed the issue Sunday with Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who later traveled to Israel. Solana told reporters that the EU is willing to return to a monitoring role at the border if other parties agree.

Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005. After the withdrawal, the Rafah crossing was regulated by a U.S.-brokered agreement. Border guards loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas controlled the Gaza side along with EU monitors, and Israel watched the traffic from afar by video camera.

Israel often closed the crossing temporarily by refusing to allow EU monitors to cross its territory to Gaza, citing security concerns. The crossing was shuttered in June when the EU monitors left.

Abbas and Egypt favor a return to the 2005 agreement, without a Hamas role at the crossing. Israeli officials are interested in the idea but doubt that Hamas would tolerate a return of Abbas’ guards. The internal Palestinian conflict is a “major obstacle” to reopening the border, Al Ahram, a state-owned Egyptian newspaper, said Sunday.

The deadlock appears to favor an extended period of de facto joint management of the crossing by Egypt and Hamas.

“Egypt wants to solve the situation politically, and in the meantime it will take measures to protect its border better,” said Mohammed Abdel Salam, an analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

He added: “This will be tough, because as long as the political problem remains unsolved, what happened at the border [last month] can happen again.”

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boudreaux@latimes.com

Noha El-Hennawy of The Times’ Cairo Bureau and special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.