Gazans breach Egyptian fence again

Egypt deployed hundreds of riot-equipped guards Friday to seal off the Gaza Strip, but abruptly withdrew them after defiant Palestinian militants bulldozed new breaches in a border fence.

A surging Palestinian crowd that had been pushed away from Egyptian soil cheered as a yellow front-end loader, escorted by black-clad Hamas gunmen, punched through three sections of a concrete barrier topped by chain-link fencing.

As border guards fired tear gas and water cannons at the loader, hundreds of people scrambled unchallenged through the openings into Egypt. Thousands more followed 80 minutes later after the entire Egyptian force retreated to barracks, intent on avoiding a bloody clash.

It was a day of seesawing fortunes for Palestinians desperate to keep the border open to prolong a three-day shopping spree for goods made scarce by an Israeli blockade.

It ended with Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza and advocates Israel’s destruction, holding a stronger hand in its bid to gain a voice in how the border is regulated and end the territory’s isolation.

“We insist and urge our Egyptian brothers that there must be a mechanism to allow the passage of people and goods through the Rafah crossing in a legal and organized manner,” Hamas government spokesman Taher Nono said Friday.

The breach poses enormous challenges for both Israel and Egypt, and leaves Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with few options that are palatable politically. In an interview published today by the weekly Al Osboa, Mubarak announced his readiness to mediate talks between Hamas and its secular Palestinian rival, Fatah, to resolve the border crisis.

He called on Israel to “lift its siege” of Gaza, which was tightened to block nearly all cross-border travel and commerce after Hamas drove Fatah’s forces from the territory in June and took control of its border posts.

Egypt, Hamas and Fatah each have voiced support for a new protocol that would allow Fatah to again administer Gaza’s border posts, at its frontiers with Israel and Egypt. Such an arrangement might be more acceptable to Israel, which deals directly with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-led administration in the West Bank but not with Hamas.

Fatah is certain to object to any deal that preserves Hamas’ overall control of Gaza, however. And Israel, under near-daily rocket attack by Gaza militants, wants Mubarak to uphold his promise to coordinate Israeli and Egyptian actions on the Gaza border in the interests of both countries.

To the dismay of Israel and the United States, that commitment wavered with Mubarak’s decision to not resist the influx of tens of thousands of Gazans after militants Wednesday blasted down much of the border’s most formidable barrier, an 18-foot-high metal wall. Until Wednesday, the Egyptian leader had largely cooperated with Israel to keep the border closed.

Friday’s chaotic struggle here at the dusty Rafah crossing, a day after assurances to the Bush administration that Egypt would restore control, indicated how hard it would be for Mubarak, politically and militarily, to completely reseal the border.

Egyptian guards in helmets and bulletproof vests spread along a seven-mile stretch of the border before dawn and installed barbed wire and chain- link fences atop waist-high concrete barriers that Palestinians had easily surmounted Wednesday and Thursday.

The guards stood shoulder to shoulder behind plastic shields, filling gaps between the newly fortified barriers. The human barricade parted to let Gazans return from Egypt with goods as diverse as cattle, refrigerators, paint, potato chips and printer paper.

But Gazans were barred from going the other way, except through a single narrow passage that many of them, in the confusion of the day, remained unaware of.

Ali Dabbah was stunned to see the guards when he arrived at the border at 6 a.m.

The Gaza merchant, 25, had gambled $5,000 on an open border, buying five Chinese-made motorcycles in Egypt late Thursday, intending to keep one and sell the others in Gaza at a 10% markup.

Wearing a blue denim jacket with a “Route 101” patch, he had driven two of them home, one at a time, during the night and was returning to fetch another. His wife, Alia, was waiting 25 miles away in the Egyptian city of El Arish with the other three.

Dabbah dialed her cellphone. “It looks bad,” he said. “I can’t get back.”

She burst into tears.

“She’s scared,” he said. “She cannot ride a motorcycle, and no one is there to help her bring them home. She fears someone will assault her and steal them.”

By 8 a.m. the crowd trying to get to Egypt had swollen into the tens of thousands. They began surging against the wall of guards and throwing stones. The guards fought back with electrified batons and German shepherds on long leashes.

Ahmad Abdelhadi, 24, an unemployed former policeman with $200 to spend in Egypt on food for a household of 10, got angry and threw a stone. It bounced off the shield of a guard, who taunted him: “If you’re a real man, come to me!”

Abdelhadi rushed forward and cocked his fist but restrained himself. The two men traded obscenities, and the Palestinian walked away in frustration.

By midmorning, the crowd had calmed down. A few thousand jostled to get through the only passageway, but began throwing rocks when the guards closed it at 1 p.m. Shooting erupted on both sides, mostly into the air.

Two hours later, when the front-end loader broke through, the guards lost control. They tried to reseal the new breaches but came under a hail of rocks. Five guards were reported injured by rocks and one by gunfire.

The gunmen escorting the loader wore black uniforms typical of Hamas’ Izzidin al-Qassam Brigade, a group that fires missiles at Israel.

Israel’s blockade, which has sharply diminished Gaza’s supplies of fuel, food, medicine and other vital items, is aimed at making life so miserable for Gazans that they turn against Hamas.

But Hamas reaped a public relations windfall this week from the perception among Gazans that it had orchestrated the border breach, opened a lifeline to Egypt and relieved their suffering at the hands of an outside aggressor.

On Friday, the movement was divided over how far to push to keep the border open.

Nono, speaking for the Hamas government, said it accepted Egypt’s decision to close the border and had no comment on any Hamas role in thwarting that effort.

But Sami abu Zuhri, a Hamas official who is not part of the government, said that Gazans must keep the barrier open until Israel lifts its blockade. “The gaps [in the border] provide urgent assistance to the Palestinians,” he said.

In any case, Egypt’s retreat was a blow to Mubarak. Having gained credit among Arabs for helping ease Gazans’ plight for 48 hours, he had plenty of reasons to reseal the border. He is under pressure from the U.S. and Israel to do so.

Last month the U.S. Congress temporarily suspended $100 million in aid, partly for Egypt’s failure to seal border tunnels to stop smuggled arms and money from reaching Hamas.

Mubarak is also wary that militants from Gaza could use an open border to find a haven in Egypt, where he has been trying to weaken the radical Muslim Brotherhood. And Egypt is not prepared to handle the humanitarian crisis that a prolonged Palestinian presence in the Sinai could bring.

But as an Arab leader, Mubarak does not want to be seen as the force behind the Palestinians’ de facto imprisonment in Gaza. The Palestinian cause is popular among Egyptians, and any perceived repression of Gazans could batter Mubarak’s image at home and lead to an upswell of dissent.

Egypt is limited by a treaty with Israel to 750 lightly armed border guards along the Gaza Strip. It is not clear whether reinforcements were sent Friday, but there were not enough guards to control the Gazans without greater use of force.

“Egypt lost a lot of credibility in its actions today,” said Mustafa Kamel El-Sayed, a political analyst at Cairo University. “Moving forces to quickly close the border, Egypt showed itself to be quite vulnerable to the U.S. and Israel.”

And, he added, those forces proved ineffective. “Any violent action against Palestinians will anger the Egyptian public. Egypt is completely helpless in this situation.”

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boudreaux@latimes.com

jeffrey.fleishman @latimes.com

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Boudreaux reported from Rafah, Fleishman from Cairo. Times special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf contributed to this report from Rafah.