Palestinians Defy Police, Flood Into Egypt

Thousands of Palestinians broke through Egyptian and Palestinian Authority lines on the Gaza border Friday, pouring into Egypt in defiance of government attempts to secure the frontier.

Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, said the Palestinian Authority’s credibility was on the line over its failure to stop gunrunners and others from crossing.

Palestinians pelted their own security forces with stones at the Saladin gate, the main informal crossing in this border town. When the Palestinian security officers gave way, the crowd pushed through the iron gateway and clashed with the Egyptian police.

Police officers tried to beat back the crowd with sticks but were overwhelmed. There was no official estimate of the number of Palestinians who entered Egypt, but there appeared to be about 5,000.

Palestinian and Egyptian police sealed two other informal crossings. Officers directed those Egyptians and Palestinians wanting to return home to the Saladin gate.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority have said they fear that Al Qaeda terrorists will infiltrate the Gaza Strip through the open Gaza-Egypt border, where Palestinians and Egyptians have been crossing with virtually no controls since Monday, when the Israeli military completed its withdrawal from Gaza.

Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry’s diplomatic and security department, said that weapons had been smuggled across the porous border and that the pace was likely to pick up if Palestinians failed to act quickly.

“The Palestinian Authority is facing a supreme test of its credibility,” he told Israel’s Army Radio when asked about the chaos along the border. “They look like they’re running a system which has neither law nor order, neither organization nor authority.”

In the empty Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim in Gaza, thousands of masked Hamas gunmen marched in formation, the Islamic militant group’s latest show of strength since the Israelis left.

The border issue and visible Hamas presence pose a serious challenge to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to assert control in Gaza. With an election set for January, Hamas and Abbas’ Fatah faction are locked in an increasingly bitter power struggle, and each is trying to use the pullout for political gain.