Palestinians return from Egypt to Gaza
More than 100 Palestinians stranded for weeks in Egypt cross into Israel through Nitzana checkpoint, where they take buses to crossing point between Jewish state, northern Strip. As first people arrive in Erez crossing, explosion takes place nearby, caused by malfunction during attempt to launch Qassam rocket
More than 100 Palestinians stranded for weeks in Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza began returning home Sunday afternoon, crossing into Israel and riding buses to the crossing point between Israel and northern Gaza.
While the first Palestinians arrived at the Erez crossing, an explosion took place nearby. The source of the explosion was a malfunction during an attempt to fire a Qassam rocket at Israel.
The first three Palestinians crossed into Gaza through the Erez checkpoint late Sunday afternoon. They were greeted with kisses and hugs from relatives, who rushed them away from the scene in cars.
The violent Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip last month triggered the closure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which was run by Palestinian security with European supervision and Israeli security in the background - stranding about 6,000 Palestinians on the Egyptian side.
During the violence, the European monitors fled and Hamas militiamen took control of the terminal. Earlier Sunday, about 1,000 Palestinians gathered in a stadium in the Egyptian town of el-Arish, where authorities read the names of 105 people who they said were approved by Israel to return to Gaza.
On the way to Gaza (Photo: AP)
Both Israel and Egypt have opposed reopening the crossing as long as Hamas remains in charge there. After weeks of negotiations, agreement was reached to repatriate the Palestinians through the Nitzana crossing in desert between Israel and Egypt. In the desert heat of about 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit,) they walked into Israel and boarded two Israeli buses for the trip to Erez.
A tank flanked by bulldozers guarded the crossing on the Israeli side as the Palestinians arrived. At one point, Israeli forces fired in the air to keep Palestinian journalists and relatives away from the crossing, setting up a buffer zone for the transfer. No one was hurt.
Ahmed Ihlel, 40, was returning to his home town of Rafah, next to the Egyptian border, after medical treatment in Egypt. "It's a tragedy that I used to live five minutes away from the Rafah crossing, and now we drove around the planet just to get home," he said.
Sunday's crossing at Nitzana was delayed for several hours because of bureaucratic discrepancies between Egypt and Israel.
'Another tragedy of the Palestinian people'
Oron Ronen, an Israeli border official, said Israel had approved 91 names but at least six more people had arrived in the hopes of crossing.Hamas denounced the arrangement, saying it gave Israel a veto on who could enter Gaza. Rafah's continued closure also means Hamas officials will find it more difficult to sneak funds into the Gaza Strip.
Hani Jabbour, a Palestinian security coordinator stationed on the Egyptian side of Rafah, said Saturday that Israel had approved a list of 627 Palestinians who would be allowed to return, out of about 6,000 who have been living in harsh desert conditions in the Egyptian border town of Rafah.
The people remaining on the list after Sunday's journey will head out the next day, and similar transfers are expected in the future, he added. Those left stranded have been asked to return to Cairo to register with the Palestinian embassy there, he said. The embassy will pass the names of those registered to the Israelis for approval, he added.
One of those in the frontier limbo is Rafik Ahmed Salman, who has been stranded in Rafah for more than two months because the crossing was intermittently closed even before Hamas took over Gaza.
"I have been here for 77 days with some sick people from my family, but I hope that I will be able to cross tomorrow," Said Salman. "This is again another tragedy of the Palestinian people."
Israeli Minister Meir Sheetrit said getting the first group across was a first positive step. "Now that things have calmed down in the Gaza Strip, I think it is quite right to give them a possibility to go back to Gaza to their homes and I hope that this step will create some kind of quietness in the Gaza Strip," he said.
Hanan Greenberg contributed to the report
