The Palestinian Government of Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that it had reached a deal with Egypt to take control of the Gaza border, which Hamas militants breached with blowtorches and explosives last week, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to cross.
Within hours Hamas officials denied that any such agreement side-lining the Islamists had been sealed with Cairo, which is struggling to contain the chaos that erupted on its border last week.
The contradictory reports came amid a flurry of high-level talks – including a meeting between Mr Abbas and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister – to discuss the destruction of the huge, Israeli-built wall on the border of Gaza with Egypt. Hamas smashed the barrier after Israel tightened its blockade on the tiny Mediterranean territory in response to Hamas rocket attacks.
Riyadh al-Maliki, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, said after talks with the Egyptian authorities that they had decided that security forces from the Fatah-led Government of the West Bank would be deployed on the breached border. “If [Hamas] don’t accept it they will be held responsible for the protracted closure of the border crossings,” he said. His administration is engaged in peace talks with Israel after being forced out of Gaza by Hamas fighters last summer.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, which hoped that the breaching of the wall would catapult it back on to the political stage after months of isolation, said: “We have our own vision of how the crossing will be run and we will present our vision to our Egyptian brothers.”
Ahmed Abul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, said only that his Government would take all “the appropriate measures” to control the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.
The border is in effect being controlled by Hamas after Egyptian police, limited in number by a border agreement with Israel, struggled to stop the flood of Palestinians desperate for basic goods.
Before the wall was brought down on Tuesday night the West Bank government had offered to deploy border guards to allow goods to move into Gaza, averting the impasse caused by the refusal of Hamas and Israel to deal with each other.
In Davos, Tony Blair, the international community’s representative in the Middle East, said that a new strategy was needed in Gaza.
“We need a different and better strategy in Gaza that isolates the extremists and helps the people. We have to put Gaza into a different framework,” he told The Times.
Mr Blair said that, despite the deepening complexity of the situation in Gaza, a deal was still possible between Israel and the West Bank administration of Mr Abbas. Hamas would then be challenged to find whether there were “elements who were prepared to be reconciled to the state of Israel”.
He added: “That is their choice and we have got to create circumstances for them to make that choice.”
HOLE IN THE WALL
1.5 million population of Gaza
700,000 have crossed the border
11 days Israel-Gaza border has been closed
6 days Egypt-Gaza border has been open
40 tonnes of Egyptian medical aid turned back at the border
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