EGYPT IMPOSES TOUGHEST GAZA RESTRICTIONS IN YEARS
Gaza City, 18 Ramadhan 1434/26 July 2013 (MINA) – Egyptian Army says it is sealing smuggling tunnels, blocking most passenger traffic as part of crackdown on Sinai militants. ‘It’s getting worse every day,’ Gaza taxi driver says, ‘Even when Mubarak was president, we used to get fuel through the tunnels.’
Egypt’s new government has imposed the toughest border restrictions on the Gaza Strip in years, sealing tunnels, blocking most passenger traffic and causing millions of dollars in economic losses.
A Egyptian military campaign earlier this month toppled the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, according to Alray media agency report monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Egypt’s military has said the Gaza restrictions are part of its security crackdown in the Sinai and has not suggested it is trying to weaken the government in Gaza or bring it down in the process.
Past predications that Gazans fed up with the daily hardships of life under blockade will rise up have not materialized.
However, the new Gaza border restrictions are tougher than any enforced by Morsi’s pro-Western predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, according to Gaza residents.
“It’s getting worse every day,” Gaza City taxi driver Khaled Jaradeh said of the shortage of cheap Egyptian fuel caused by the closure. Jaradeh was waiting in a slow-moving line outside a gas station, with about 30 cars in front of him.
“Even when Mubarak was president, we used to get fuel through the tunnels,” Jaradeh said.
The Gazan leaders have been carefully not to criticize Egypt’s border clampdown, for fear of being accused of meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs. However, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, has complained that Egyptian media reports “about Palestinian interference in the Egyptian affairs in support of President Morsi are not true.”
Some Egyptian media outlets have described the Palestinians as troublemakers but Palestinians denied this.
Egyptian Diplomat Says Relations with Palestine are Strong
Relations between the Egyptian and Palestinian people are strong and cannot be affected by any isolated voices who try to undermine those ties, Egypt’s ambassador to the Palestine Yasser Othman said Tuesday.
He told WAFA on the occasion of Egypt’s July23 revolution that the Palestinian cause is in the heart of every Egyptian and the Egyptian state strongly supports Palestinian rights.
Othman praised the position of the Palestinian leadership and people in supporting the choice of the Egyptian people and its revolution and of non-interference in the internal affairs in Egypt.
The Egyptian diplomat said some of the exceptional measures the authorities were forced to take on the border with Gaza were not aimed at the Palestinian people, rather only to safeguard Egyptian national security at this unusual time.
“We look at Gaza away from a factional perspective,” he said, adding that “Egypt will continue to support ending the blockade and siege on Gaza, national reconciliation and ending the aggression against the Palestinian people.” (T/P02/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
