Police protest forces closure of Gaza border

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – European Union monitors withdrew from
Gaza’s border with Egypt on Friday after Palestinian police
imposed an armed blockade to protest the killing of a colleague
in spiraling internal violence.

Already busy searching for three Britons abducted nearby on
Wednesday, officials scrambled to defuse the standoff at the
Rafah border crossing, whose opening last month was hailed as a
step to make Gaza a testing ground for Palestinian statehood.

Unrest has been growing since Israel withdrew in September
after 38 years of occupation. The power struggle among police,
gangs and factions waging a 5-year-old uprising against Israel
has also been stoked by a parliamentary election next month.

Witnesses said policemen, backed by gunmen from the
dominant Palestinian faction Fatah, prevented vehicles from
reaching the Rafah crossing. They fanned out in the terminal,
forcibly ejecting would-be travelers.

“The gunmen and police are angry at the failure of the
Palestinian Authority to stop armed chaos and to free their
hands to fight lawlessness,” said one traveler, who did not
want to give his name.

The policemen had been incensed after a fellow officer died
in a clash with a Rafah clan on Thursday, the witnesses said.

A spokesman for European Union security monitors stationed
at the Rafah terminal said all personnel withdrew to Israel
while the Palestinian Authority tried to end the blockade.

“Palestinian police advised us to leave,” said the
spokesman, Julio de la Guardia. “Rafah crossing is closed
because the monitors left.”

RAFAH OPENED UNDER RICE’S AUSPICES

Asked about the blockade, a senior Palestinian official
said on condition of anonymity: “This is very disturbing. We
will exert maximum efforts to reopen it immediately.”

The crossing was opened last month under a deal brokered by
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the hope of
reviving the Gaza economy and efforts to end five years of
fighting with Israel.

But the initial optimism dimmed with a resurgence of
violence that shows little sign of abating. On Sunday, a
“period of calm” declared by militants at the urging of
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is set to expire.

A suicide bomber from the militant group Islamic Jihad
killed an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian in the occupied
West Bank on Thursday, prompting Israeli vows of new army
crackdowns.

The Palestinian Authority has failed so far to track down a
British human rights activist abducted along with her visiting
parents by gunmen in Rafah on Wednesday.

Palestinians accuse Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of
stoking unrest by expanding Jewish settlements in the West
Bank, where they seek statehood along with Gaza.

Sharon, favorite to win the general election on March 28,
has pledged to keep major West Bank settlement blocs but hinted
that isolated settlements could be removed under a peace
accord.

The Israeli army said on Friday it had dismantled three
West Bank outposts erected by Jewish settlers.

A spokeswoman for the settlers said the outposts — lean-to
structures made of stone and wood — would be restored, and
that at least 18 more remained untouched. An Israeli military
source said there were no more than 10 remaining.