Palestinian PM calls to open Gaza borders

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called on Thursday for Gaza's borders to be opened in line with an agreement that would restore a role for his West Bank-based government in managing the crossings.

Fayyad said in an interview that opening the crossings in accordance with the 2005 agreement would help reunify the West Bank and Gaza – which have been ruled by separate governments since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

"Reopening the crossings actually creates a much better environment for reuniting the country and the Palestinian institutions with it," said Fayyad, who has not visited the coastal territory for more than three years.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed Fayyad prime minister in the West Bank in 2007, after Hamas seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to Fatah, which is led by Abbas.

Israeli restrictions, first imposed in 2005, were tightened after Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006, again when Gaza-based militants captured  Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit later that year and further still in 2007 when Hamas took full control of Gaza.

Fayyad, an independent, said the wave of international pressure on Israel to ease the blockade should result in the opening of Gaza's land crossings immediately.

He warned against actions that would result in Gaza becoming "more and more a stand-alone entity".

He was referring to suggestions that Israel, which imposed the blockade to weaken Hamas, could lift the naval blockade, while sealing the land crossings.

"If the approach of reopening Gaza focuses on, let's say, exclusively maritime traffic, I see a serious risk of that putting us in a situation where we end up having Gaza as a stand-alone entity," Fayyad said at his Ramallah office.

"That is extremely dangerous from a political point of view, given our objective of ending the Israeli occupation and having a state of Palestine emerge from the territories occupied in 1967," said Fayyad, whose government has political and financial backing from the United States and Europe.

Hamas, by contrast, is shunned by Western governments because of its hostility to Israel, which says the embargo is there to stop the Iran-backed group strengthening its arsenal.

Palestinians Unified

International pressure on Israel to lift or ease the embargo has increased sharply since last week when its navy intercepted a Turkish aid ship trying to run the blockade, killing nine Turks in the process.

Western European nations have called for the blockade to be lifted. The United States, Israel's closest ally, said it is unsustainable. President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for a "new conceptual framework" to the embargo.

Fayyad said proposals should focus on the 2005 agreement, brokered by the United States and the European Union after Israel pulled its settlers and soldiers out of the Gaza Strip.

"The most logical way of going about it is to once again reactivate that," Fayyad said of an agreement which included understandings on Gaza's land crossings to Israel, its seaport, airport and the Rafah crossing to Egypt.

It also provided for the passage of goods and people between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. "I understand that not all the elements included in that agreement ... can be implemented tomorrow," Fayyad said.

But land crossings could be opened immediately, he said. "The framework is there, let's get on with that and approach it this way," he said.

Restoring the deal would result in the Palestinian Authority managing the Gaza crossings. "That's what actually existed before and that's what that framework that I referred to provides for and I see no reason why that can't also happen," said Fayyad.

This could be problematic for Hamas which remains hostile to Abbas and has built a Gaza police force numbering some 13,000.

Asked whether Hamas would accept, Fayyad said: "I have no reason to believe otherwise. All Palestinians are unified in wanting to see the siege lifted." Freedom of movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is essential, Fayyad added. "Safe passage has got to be part of the structure of the state of Palestine in accordance with the two-state solution concept," he said.