SYRIA: Hamas not responsible for Rafah border breach, says Khaled Meshaal

Record ID: 278573

  • Title: SYRIA: Hamas not responsible for Rafah border breach, says Khaled Meshaal
  • Date: 24th January 2008
  • Summary: (MER1) SAHARA, NEAR DAMASCUS, SYRIA (JANUARY 23, 2008) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL): MEETING OF PALESTINIAN FACTIONS HAMAS LEADER KHALED MESHAAL SITTING WITH LEADERS OF PALESTINIAN FACTIONS VARIOUS OF THOSE ATTENDING MEETING MESHAAL AT PODIUM PEOPLE ATTENDING MEETING MESHAAL SPEAKING AT PODIUM (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HAMAS LEADER KHALED MESHAAL SAYING: "Do not blame Gaza residents w
  • Embargoed: 8th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA9WOV3VOKBDJENKNRWGX4JCGQ1
  • Story Text: Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal says that Hamas was not responsible for the Rafah border breach which enabled Gazans to stream into Egypt from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to stock up on goods.
    Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday (January 23) said the Rafah border breach was a result of the circumstances created by the Israeli blockade of Gaza and was not carried out by Hamas or any other Palestinian faction.

    "Do not blame Gaza residents when they break the wall down. This wall could not be demolished through an organised decision by Hamas or anyone else. This was the people's decision. These people have been under siege for eight months. It is an Israelli-American siege," Meshaal told a meeting of Palestinian factions in the Sahara suburb of Damascus.
    Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday through a border wall blown up by militants and stocked up on food and fuel in short supply due to an Israeli blockade.
    Residents of Rafah, a divided town straddling the Egypt-Gaza frontier, said militants set off explosions overnight that demolished about 200 metres (yards) of the now-rusting, 6-metre (20-foot)-high metal border wall erected by Israel in 2004, a year before it pulled troops and settlers from the territory.
    The fall of the Rafah wall punched a new hole in Israeli efforts to keep pressure on the Gaza Strip in the face of an international outcry over shortages in the territory Palestinians call a giant jail.
    A border terminal in Rafah, once a main avenue to the outside world for Gazans, has been largely closed since Hamas Islamists opposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace efforts with Israel violently took over the Gaza Strip in June.
    Egyptian riot police sent to reinforce the border mainly stood aside and let the Palestinians through, witnesses said, a day after they drove back Gazans who stormed the Rafah crossing.
    Israel, saying it hoped to curb militants' rocket attacks, tightened its Gaza border closure last week, cutting fuel shipments to a main power plant and petrol stations and stopping aid that included food and other humanitarian supplies.
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