Gaza City, Janaury 13: The construction of a new underground wall and recent border clashes have frayed relations between Hamas and Egypt and could threaten Gaza’s main lifeline in Gaza, analysts say.
Citing national security, Egypt is now building an underground iron wall in a new bid to tighten its porous Sinai border with the restive Palestinian territory.
Media reports said it would be 30 meters (100 feet) deep and 10 kilometers (six miles) long.
Since democratically elected Hamas seized total power in Gaza in 2007 it has relied on smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt to provide essential food and products for its Israeli-besieged people.
Hamas leaders have also used it for frequent trips to Cairo.
“Egypt decided to build the steel wall in order to punish Hamas, which irritated Cairo by refusing to sign the reconciliation agreement,” says Emad Gad of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
“From now on, Hamas is in a tight spot. It is under a full blockade, the tunnels used to smuggle funding from Iran will be shut down and the population will only have the bare minimum needed to survive,” he adds.
Egypt has said Rafah can only be reopened after Hamas is reconciled with Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement and has demanded it sign a reconciliation agreement.
The two Palestinian groups have feuded since Hamas routed Fatah forces in Gaza two years ago to prevent a US-backed coup against Hamas’s democratic election.
“We want Palestinian reconciliation because without stopping the internal fighting there will never be a Palestinian state,” says Mohammed Bassiouni, a former Egyptian ambassador to Israel who is close to Cairo’s talks with Hamas and with Israel.
The diplomat warns that Egypt is not willing to renegotiate the unity deal proposed last autumn. “The ball is in Hamas’s court.”
The construction of the barrier could backfire by spurring protests against Egypt in Gaza and the wider Arab world.
Last week an Egyptian soldier was shot dead when gunfire erupted along the border after a protest against the wall in which some 200 Palestinians hurled stones. Hamas described the incident “regrettable”.
Sharrab doubts whether Egypt will completely shut down the tunnels and says Cairo’s fear of instability in Gaza will prevent it from escalating tensions with Hamas.
“Egypt knows it cannot close the Rafah crossing and the border completely despite this so-called wall,” he says. “I think the two sides are determined to avoid tensions.”
The Israeli siege has failed to undermine democratically elected Hamas.
“I don’t think Hamas will be affected (by Egyptian the wall) because it has the financing and the organisation to face these limitations,” said Walid Mudallal, a professor at Gaza’s Islamic University.
“The popular anger will be directed against Egypt, and I don’t think Egypt can accept being placed among the enemies.”
The United States Tuesday voiced its support for the wall being built by Egypt to block a network of tunnels stretching out from the Gaza Strip, arguing it would stop arms smuggling.
Egypt at the weekend banned aid convoys bound for the Gaza Strip from traveling across Egyptian territory after activists clashed with police.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit told the government newspaper Al-Ahram that members of one convoy led by British MP George Galloway committed “criminal” acts on Egyptian soil on their way to Gaza.
“Egypt will no longer allow convoys, regardless of their origin or who is organizing them, from crossing its territory,” Abul Gheit said.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.]
—Agencies