Hamas working to reimpose control at Gaza border

RAFAH, Egypt – Hamas militants joined Egyptian forces for a second day Monday in trying to restore control at three breaches in the Gaza border, building a chain-link fence to seal off one opening and directing traffic at two others.\nHundreds of thousands of Palestinians have flooded into Egypt unchecked over the past six days since Hamas militants blasted holes in the border partition. They have been voraciously buying up food, fuel and other goods made scarce by Israeli and Egyptian closures of Gaza’s borders.\nHamas seized control of the Palestinian territory in June but before the breach, it had no role in policing the border with Egypt. Now the Islamic militant group is hoping that will change and it is pressing for some kind of future role in border administration.\nAt a meeting in Cairo, Arab governments were forceful in their opposition to that idea.\nEgypt and the foreign ministers of the Arab League have firmly backed the Palestinian Authority led by moderate President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah in its power struggle against rival Hamas. They have called for a return to a 2005 international border monitoring agreement that excluded the Islamist organization entirely.\n“They (Hamas) should not interfere. They should just simply get out of the way and allow this to happen,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who heads a rival government in the West Bank, told reporters after returning from Cairo.\nIn the divided town of Rafah, however, Hamas forces were very much in control.\n“There has been continuous and direct cooperation with Egyptian security officials over the last couple of days,” said a bearded Hamas security official dressed in blue camouflage and sporting an assault rifle. “They asked us to only allow trucks to enter and not civilian cars to make the operation as orderly as possible.”\nTraffic was still chaotic on the Egyptian side as more Palestinians poured in to snap up whatever goods they could find.\nFood and fuel were in short supply in Gaza since Israel, responding to growing rocket attacks from Gaza, sealed its border days before the militants blasted open the Egyptian frontier further to the south.\nThe Egyptians deployed about 100 riot police at the two remaining openings Monday.\n“Egypt intends to gradually regain control of its border with Gaza and bring the situation back to an acceptable form,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in a message to European countries and the United States.\nIn Washington, the State Department said it was critical to get the border under control while addressing both the humanitarian needs of the Palestinians in Gaza and Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself.\nSpokesman Sean McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke on Sunday to Aboul Gheit. He urged a return to an arrangement Rice brokered in 2005, before Hamas seized Gaza, in which the border was controlled by the Palestinian Authority, Israel and European monitors.