MUST READ: WEST BACKS FATAH ROLE AT GAZA CROSSING

West Backs Fatah Role at Gaza Crossing

Who should control the Gaza-Egyptian border? Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has offered his services. And Israel, contrary to its earlier position, seems inclined to accept. But Hamas may try to spike the arrangement.

Israel has indicated that it will not block Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from taking control of the breached border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. The EU and US already back a Palestinian Authority presence at the crossing with Egypt at Rafah but Israel had previously argued that Abbas' security forces are no match for Hamas.

However, after the border wall was breached last week, Israel has shifted its position and said it would not object if there was an agreement on the border between Abbas and Cairo. "If all of them want it, we will not be the ones that will undermine it. So it will happen," an Israeli official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Gaza's Egyptian border was blasted open by militants last week, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flood into Egypt (more...) to stock up on supplies which had run low after Israel imposed a blockade the previous week. The Israelis were reacting to sustained rocket attacks across the border from the Gaza Strip.

The flood of people is ebbing now that the Egytian authorities have prevented goods from getting to the border area, and President Abbas and a Hamas delegation are travelling to Cairo on Wednesday for separate talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek.

While Egypt wants to see the open border re-secured it is also mindful of the huge amount of sympathy for the Palestinians, particularly Gaza's inhabitants, in the Arab World. Cairo does not want to reclose the crossing without some kind of new system to allow the flow of goods and people.

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