When the authorities at the Rafah border terminal closed down their offices on Saturday, they were wrapping up the first day of a new era in Egyptian foreign policy. In a move hailed by many Palestinians and Egyptians as a break from years of unpopular Mubarak-era diplomacy - the joint enforcement, with Israel, of a four-year blockade on the Gaza Strip - Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces launched a new set of border rules that observers said would give Gazan Palestinians back their pre-blockade freedom.
Palestinian women and children, as well as men under the age of 18 or over the age of 40, are now permitted to enter Egypt for up to one month without a visa. Men between the ages of 18 and 40 may be granted permits to enter for reasons such as enrollment in Egyptian universities or a need for medical treatment. In effect, the new conditions seem to read, Gazans will now have a great deal more freedom to travel outside their 139-square-mile territory, which they have likened to a large, outdoor prison since the blockade was imposed in 2007 after the Islamist group Hamas took control. (See pictures of Israel's assault on Gaza.)
And yet, opening day marked one of the slowest business days that Rafah Crossing had seen in years. Egyptian officials reported that roughly 400 people crossed into Egypt at Rafah on Saturday, and 153 into Gaza. "I think most of the people don't believe they can actually leave the Gaza Strip. It has been a long time," says Said al-Batran, a Palestinian-Danish surgeon who was trying to cross in the opposite direction.
Indeed, the atmosphere inside the arrivals terminal was mysteriously subdued for much of the day. The shouting and tears on either side of the crossing, typical of scenes from the blockaded border's past, were largely absent. A team of medics from the Egyptian Ministry of Health sat idly in a corner with no patients to treat. And only several dozen travellers seemed to populate the hall at any given time. "We noticed today that there were more journalists than Palestinians," observes Ahmed Abu Deraa, an Egyptian journalist from North Sinai. (See why the Rafah crossing was only opened sporadically.)
The Israeli government had warned that opening the border would threaten the region's security; weapons and terrorists would flood across in both directions. Gaza's Islamist rulers, Hamas, would become empowered. Israel's border security would plummet. "Do you see any missiles here?" scoffs a Hamas border official as as small groups of Palestinians trickled through metal detectors, and even fewer drifted out of the Egyptian departures hall into Gaza.
Could it be that Gaza is suffering from denial, as al-Batran suggested? Maybe it's just confusion, Egyptian border officials offered. "It's the weekend, so they probably didn't realize it was open," one customs official says while waiting for customers.
Afaf Hassan, who was on her way to Egypt, suggested the opposite: there was so much anticipation inside the densely-packed Strip that many people had decided to wait out the crowds. "I think a lot of people didn't come because they expected there to be a huge rush," she says. "People were calling me and I told them it's empty. There will probably be a big rush in the next few days." (See pictures of the tunnel economy in the Gaza Strip.)
More likely, others suggested: not a whole lot has changed. A huge proportion of Gaza's population (those men ages 18 to 40) are still largely banned from travel. "The truth about Rafah is that they never opened it. Three days ago it was exactly the same," said Deraa. When the military had announced the shift in policy, he initially expected to see thousands flood across the border. In the end, he says: "It was extreme propaganda - that has backfired because the journalists came and saw it."
Egypt's temporary military caretakers may have every reason to propagandize as the country hurtles through its fourth month of rocky transition after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. On Friday, thousands of mostly young activists flooded into Cairo's Tahrir Square for what many dubbed "the Second Revolution" to protest perceived delays in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' implementation of the revolution's demands. Those include speedy trials for ex-President Hosni Mubarak and his cronies, better security, economic reforms, and an end to military tribunals for civilians.
See how opening the crossing will "put an end to Palestinian suffering."
But increasingly, the revolutionaries of post-Mubarak Egypt have also focused their attention on foreign policy, particularly reform of Mubarak's steadfast but widely unpopular support for Israel and its enforcement of the Gaza blockade. Four days before the protest, the General Prosecutor's office announced that Mubarak would soon stand trial on charges of conspiring to kill protesters during the uprising. Less than a month earlier, the military had announced that it would loosen the operational procedures at Rafah crossing, easing the blockade for some 1.5 million Palestinians. While widely applauded by the Egyptian public, a number of cynics dismissed the moves as superficial efforts to mollify the would-be demonstrators of Tahrir.
At Rafah, at least thirty angry men were turned away on Saturday, deposited on buses and sent back to Gaza after their names showed up on an Egyptian security blacklist. It's a blacklist that dates to well before Mubarak's departure. "They all came today thinking they would get in because it's a new era," says a senior Egyptian border official. "But many of them have been turned away before." (See a cartoon history of Gaza.)
"They don't like people who look like me," says Abu Mohamed, a 46-year-old Islamist, pulling on his beard. "My beard is too long," he says, retreating to a bus with other religious men who attributed their rejection to their adherence to Dawa, a strict literalist interpretation of Islam.
Jamal Najim, 53, knew that he was turned away because he was among the thousands of Palestinians who flooded into Egypt in 2007, after Palestinian gunmen literally blew a hole in Egypt's blockade. That didn't make him any less angry, and he screamed at Egyptian customs officials until he was escorted out of the terminal. In 2007, he had spent months trapped in Gaza, and was desperate to see his Egyptian wife and daughter. He was arrested in Egypt, blacklisted, and returned. He hasn't seen his family since.
Indeed, much to Palestinians' dismay - and perhaps, to Israel's comfort - Egypt's feared intelligence service, the mukhabarat, continues to wield control over the border terminal, just as it always has. Foreigners and Egyptians still require special permission from Egyptian intelligence to enter Gaza. Even Palestinians who lack Ramallah-issued IDs still face the same difficulties trying to return. The Israeli government revoked Said al-Batran's national ID card in 1981, when he left the Gaza Strip to study in Russia. "Look, I'll show you my passport," he said, flipping through the 19 Egyptian visas, each one for a failed attempt to enter Gaza, that he'd accumulated since 2006. He's trying again now because his 82-year-old mother is gravely ill. So far he has had no luck. (See why tunnels have become a big business into Gaza.)
Most of the faces keeping security at the border haven't changed either, the Egyptian official admits. That includes Major Salama Baraka, Hamas' General Manager of Border Security, who has worked closely with his Egyptian counterparts for the past two years despite the fact that the same officials were also coordinating, at times, with the Israeli government. "We've always had good communication with the Egyptian side," he says. "But now there's the hope that travel for Palestinians will be much easier."
Indeed, it may not mark an end to the blockade, but the revised rules are a welcome change for many Palestinian families who crossed into Egypt successfully. The revolution has helped Egyptians reclaim some of the dignity they lost under Mubarak's repression, they say - and it's slowly trickling across the border to them. "It's better than before," says Issa Ali Nashar, a Hamas official from the Prime Minister's office who was traveling to Cairo for meetings and a doctor's visit. The passage has eased with the new regulations, and the Palestinians are meeting kinder treatment than they used to. "We can feel that things have changed. But we know the change will continue to come step by step."
In the arrivals terminal, Hassan, 62, was calm and optimistic, en route to Jordan for medical treatment. "It used to be that if you needed to go abroad for something, you had to really plan and gather your papers. We used to have to wait all day to cross," she says. "So far, we have only waited an hour."
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