After Gaza pullout, Egypt border is new division

RAFAH, Egypt -- Always a smuggler's paradise, this sand-swept and divided border town has for years set the tone for Israeli-Palestinian clashes. During the Palestinian uprising, Israelis bulldozed houses along the border, while militants and arms dealers burrowed underground tunnels to hide and smuggle weapons across.

Now, days after Israel finished its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Rafah is providing the starkest test for Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinians caught between the two regional powers.

Residents of Rafah, a poor desert town of cinder block hovels, concrete apartment blocks, and dusty olive groves, have less loyalty to the different political entities claiming their land than they do to their clans, which extend into Gaza, Israel, and Egypt.

On the Egyptian side, smuggling and the difficulties of visiting family across the border have always been bigger complaints than Palestinian politics. On the Gaza side, poverty-stricken people living near the border bore the greatest brunt of the fighting between Palestinian factions and the Israel Defense Forces, caught in the cross-fire of bullets, their houses crushed in the blades of Israeli bulldozers.

Against this backdrop, Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority are trying to forge a new on-the-ground reality, with Arab police replacing Israeli soldiers in the hunt for terrorists and weapons smugglers working on the border.

But chaos erupted at the border just hours after the Israelis pulled their last troops from Gaza on Monday. Palestinians wrenched apart concrete and metal barriers, climbed over ladders, and dug under fences.

Thousands of exuberant Palestinians and Egyptians have streamed across the border -- most to shop or visit relatives but a few carrying weapons -- as Egypt, to the Israelis' surprise, said it was allowing the crossings in a good-will gesture.

If border control remains lax, infiltrators could move freely in and out of Gaza, raising the risk of terrorist attacks not only in Israel but also in Egypt, which has suffered major strikes on tourist resorts in the Sinai.

''The Egyptians, if they want to, can stop terrorists from crossing," said Colonel Pinky Zoaretz of the Israel Defense Forces, who spent two years patrolling the Philadelphi Corridor, the militarized border road that divided Rafah after Israel and Egypt signed their peace agreement in 1979.

''Imagine the scenario where a terrorist crosses into Egypt from Gaza, and then comes into Israel and strikes one of our cities," said Zoaretz, who searched for smugglers and battled militants in Rafah until July 2004 when a land mine struck his jeep and blew off one of his legs. ''If this continues, it will create a situation where we have no other choice but to attack."

Israelis no longer police the 8-mile Philadelphi line, which stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the dunes of the Sinai Desert. In places, Philadelphi resembles the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with a 30-foot concrete wall, two military patrol roads, a second concrete wall, and barbed wire.

With the fanfare of disengagement over, the border status is the most intractable point of contention among Israelis, Palestinians, and Egyptians. The turmoil at the border has strengthened Israeli hard-liners, who say the Palestinians can't be trusted to control militant factions.

More importantly, Israelis are skeptical of Egypt's commitment after the neighboring country didn't deliver on its promise to take over Israel's police role at the border. Egypt has deployed an armed battalion to the Rafah area and vowed to bring the border under control.

The dispute threatens to undermine any good will engendered between Israel and Palestinian Authority during the pullout from Gaza. Palestinians refused to participate in the handover ceremony Sunday, as Israel lowered its flag over Gaza for the last time.

Israel wants people entering Gaza, as well as goods going in both directions, to cross through an Israeli-controlled facility at Kerem Shalom, at the southeast corner of the Gaza Strip. Only Palestinians leaving Gaza would cross through Rafah.

But Palestinians want to maintain the crossing for goods and people at Rafah, with a third party, like the European Union, sending inspectors to guarantee security. Israel is under international pressure not to dictate a settlement that appears to cut off Gaza from the outside world.

Palestinians say the Kerem Shalom plan takes away their one chance at an increased measure of sovereignty over their borders -- since Israel still has veto power over land and sea access and entry into Israel.

''We will never accept the movement of people through Kerem Shalom," said Diana Buttu, legal adviser and spokeswoman for the Palestinian ministry in charge of the handover. ''End of story."

Ziad Abu Amr, a long-time Palestinian negotiator, says Israel's unilateral approach to disengagement planning has demoralized Palestinians.

''Nothing mattered, nothing the Palestinians, the Americans, the Europeans, or the international community said. [Sharon] did it, to the letter, the way he visualized it," he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. ''We will see more [Israeli] conditions placed on the Palestinians to reopen the border."

The bitter debate was overtaken by events Monday, when Palestinians began flooding across the border soon after Israeli troops left Gaza.

The situation seemed to spin out of control with each day, and Egyptians and Palestinians struggled to take control.

But there were signs yesterday that a clampdown was under way, as Palestinian riot police fired in the air to keep back dozens of stone-throwing trespassers, and cranes and bulldozers plugged breaches along the porous border.

Israel's Foreign Ministry has expressed concern that Al Qaeda terrorists could infiltrate across the Gaza border. ''There's no point of opening up all the crossings and have a wave of suicide bombings," ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Egypt, meanwhile, ''has capabilities we never had to stop smuggling," Regev said. ''No one is asking for perfection."

But Zoaretz, the Israeli commander who spent two years on the border, said Egyptian police commonly turned a blind eye to smuggling and refused to destroy tunnels found by the Israelis.

''It's only a matter of decision," Zoaretz said. ''The Egyptians could control every bullet smuggled."

Egypt's ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Assem, told Israel Radio that Egyptian authorities would restore order at the border after giving Gazans the opportunity to taste freedom and reconnect with their families. ''You are talking about people who were basically imprisoned for the last 38 years," he said.

He also brushed aside concerns about a new wave of arms trafficking. ''You can rest assured that there are already enough guns in the Gaza Strip so that people don't need to smuggle them," he said.

On the Egyptian side of the border, state security services have checkpoints on all major roads, with a visible police presence. Foreigners are banned from leaving the main road, and plainclothes police monitor the local population.

Since Israel built the concrete wall at the border in 2002, communication across Rafah has grown more difficult for the city's residents.

Hakma Mohammed Ahmed, 45, lives barely 200 yards from the Philadelphi road on the Egyptian side, separated from the border by a trash heap and a vineyard. She grew up in Khan Yunis, on the Israeli side, but married an Egyptian and moved across 27 years ago. Now, she is raising nine children while her husband languishes in an Egyptian jail on drug trafficking charges.

To her, Gaza seems a land of wealth and plenty compared with the rural poverty of her sand-floored shack in Rafah. Only one of her children goes to school; most of the others join her in a daily search for work picking fruit.

''Our tradition is, you live the life of your husband no matter how poor he is," Ahmed said, explaining why she hasn't moved her family back to Gaza. ''Even though the living standard is better there, I felt so much more secure when I left."

Some Gazans, like Ahmed Mouraza Abu Jamous, 73, a retired laborer from the Israeli side, still make the trip to Egypt regularly to visit relatives. Earlier this month, he found himself stuck in Egypt when Israel shut the border before the withdrawal.

''The more they isolate us, the more difficult our lives become," Abu Jamous said, describing the years of fighting that have seen the destruction of police stations and homes, punctuated by regular attacks by Palestinian factions against Israeli forces. ''Destruction has become normal."