RAFAH, Egypt - Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into southern Egypt yesterday after Hamas militants blew up parts of the fence dividing Egypt from the Gaza Strip, forcing an end to the closing of Gaza that had followed Hamas's takeover of the territory last summer.
On foot, bicycle, donkey cart, and pickup truck, Gazans went on a buying spree of medicine, cement, sheep,
From the breach of the border wall before dawn until well into the evening, Palestinians crossed from Rafah in Gaza to Rafah in Egypt. The city has been divided by the border since 1982, when Israel returned Sinai to Egypt, which declined to take back Gaza as well.
While the destruction of the fence was an act of defiance by Hamas against Israel, which wants Gaza isolated, and against Egypt, which sealed the border to keep Palestinians out, officials from both countries suggested that what happened here yesterday was not all bad.
"I told them: 'Let them come in to eat and buy food, then they go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons,' " President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt told reporters at a book fair in Cairo. This came after his forces Wahad pushed back protesting women from the Rafah crossing Tuesday.
For their part, Israeli officials said that, if controlled, the border opening to Egypt might allow Israel to lock the door to a Hamas-run Gaza and let the Egyptians handle the poverty and problems of the 1.5 million people there.
Mubarak urged Hamas to get together with its rival party, Fatah, saying: "If we speak to one Palestinian party we find the other party gets angry. If we ask them to negotiate without preconditions, some of them get angry. There are many problems between them, but I do not want to get into the details."
The prospect of an open border with Egypt was widely accepted as a victory for Hamas and another embarrassment for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who leads Fatah and is seen as a partner with Israel and the United States and complicit in the closing of Gaza.
Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, refused in an interview to take direct responsibility for ordering the Egyptian border opened, but said: "We are creating facts. We have to try to change the situation, and now we await the results."
With the crossings to Israel closed and minimal goods coming in, Zahar said, "Rafah is our only lung. If Rafah remains shut, it means our acceptance to be strangled, our acceptance to die. We warned the Egyptians yesterday that people are hungry and dying." Sometimes, he acknowledged, it was necessary to create a crisis to settle another one.
It was clear that Hamas, pressured by the closing from Israel, which had produced international protests, decided to push the issue with Egypt. Muhammad Mishlahad broke down nearly a half-mile of massive concrete blocks with his big Effer crane. "I got a call from Hamas at 6 a.m. this morning, and they said they had a job for me," Mishlahad said, nearly giddy with the thrill of the day. "They asked me to come and clear the barrier." Asked if he was afraid, he laughed and said: "Why should we be afraid? This is our state."
In Cairo, analysts said that the situation was delicate for the Egyptian authorities. "It is a dilemma for Egypt," said Emad Gad, an analyst at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "If it prevents Palestinian civilians from crossing and confronts them with force, it opens itself up to unlimited public scrutiny at home, and if it lets the Palestinians through they face the risk of not knowing who or what is coming in and criticism from Israel and the United States."
Here in Rafah, relatives from both sides met, as did business partners who usually smuggle goods through the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza. For one day at least, and probably longer, no tunnels were necessary, and Egyptian businessmen brought goods to sell from the more distant town of El Arish to Rafah. Some enterprising Gazans ordered goods from Cairo in the morning and went across to Rafah to pick them up at noon.
Farid Abu Jabara, 45, who helps to run a Swedish foundation for Gaza's handicapped, picked up 50 air mattresses and their pumps, which he had ordered at his own initiative from Cairo at 7 a.m.
Muhammad Mowab, 22, a student and barber, bought a cartload of cement for 20 shekels a bag, compared with 300 shekels now in Gaza, where Israel has banned importing cement except for specific humanitarian projects. "I've been waiting a year to get married, so I can build a house," he said, then laughed. "Now there are no more excuses."
A senior Israeli official, refusing to use his name because his minister is away, said the development might solve a problem.
"This may be a blessing in disguise," he said. "On the level of smuggling, weapons and so on, it makes no difference. But if it continues like this, it will ease tremendously the pressure on Israel on the humanitarian level. The humanitarian organizations will get off our backs. There won't be any shortages. So that is a good thing. We don't care if people buy food in Egypt. And terrorists come in anyway. Second - there's a notion that Barak believes in - and I think Sharon did too - of getting out of Gaza, and throwing away the keys," he said, referring to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Another Israeli official said of the border: "Instead of being unofficially open, it will now be officially open. We are starting to talk about it. Some people in the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry and prime minister's office are very happy with this. They are saying, 'At last, the disengagement is beginning to work.' "
Fatan Hessin, 45, met a childhood friend, Inshira Hamdal, for the first time in years. "A few months ago I thought I would never see her again," Hessin said. "We are so tired of this life in Gaza - closure, unemployment, poverty, violence." She came to buy a large bag of flour - 250 shekels in Gaza now, and only 65 shekels here - and wished she had money to buy more.
"We thank Hamas for this," Hessin said, holding on to Hamdal's hand. "I'm a Palestinian, not Fatah or Hamas. But I thank Hamas. This is the best thing they have done."
In Gaza, Zahar and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called for an urgent meeting with Egypt to work out a new shared arrangement for Gaza's border crossings. Haniya suggested that Hamas would be prepared to cede some control to Abbas, saying: "We don't want to be the only ones in control of these matters."
Zahar, however, said that Hamas and Egypt should meet to work out a border regime, saying that Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinian Authority. "We don't want chaos on the border," he said. "We can patrol our side. We want to keep out criminals and drug traffickers." But he emphasized that Hamas saw Gaza and the West Bank as a single state.
Abbas's appointed government in the West Bank denounced Haniya's suggestion. Ashraf Ajrami, a Cabinet minister, said that Haniya was ignoring Abbas's demand that it return Gaza to his control. "Everything Haniya is saying is simply to exploit this situation to win political gains," he said.
