Israel, Palestinians reach deal on Gaza border crossings

Nov 15, 2005, 18:59 GMT

Jerusalem - After more than two months of arguing, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have reached an agreement on opening up the Gaza Strip to the outside world, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Tuesday.

The agreement came after Rice cancelled a trip to South Korea to oversee marathon talks between the sides throughout the night and into the morning.

Palestinians have complained that without the smooth movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza, the Strip was effectively a 'big prison'.

For Israel, which fears weapons smuggling and infiltration by militants, including operatives of al-Qaeda, tight security at the crossings is a top priority.

Rafah, the main crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has been mostly closed since Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of the Strip in August and September and ended 38 years of occupation of the salient.

Under the deal announced Tuesday, Palestinian civilians will be able to travel fairly freely through the Rafah terminal and the PA will have the responsibility of preventing the movement of weapons and explosives through the crossing point.

Trucks, however, will have to use the Kerem Shalom crossing, located just outside the Strip on Israel's border with Egypt.

From there they will apparently have to travel some 30-40 kilometres north to enter the Gaza Strip via the Karni commercial crossing east of Gaza City.

By the end of the year Israel plans to allow at least 150 daily truckloads of cargo to be exported from Gaza through the Karni crossing into Israel, up from the 35 truckloads a day that crossed before Israel pulled out from Gaza.

At least 400 daily truckloads are to be allowed to pass by the end of 2006.

A liaison office manned by European Union observers will receive real-time video and data of the activities at Rafah.

The E.U has the authority to ensure the PA complies with the rules and regulations concerning the crossing point and has the authority to order the re-examination and reassessment of any passenger, luggage, vehicle or goods.

'This agreement is intended to give Palestinian people the freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives,' Rice told a news conference at the Jerusalem hotel where the talks were held.

'Israel and The Palestinian Authority Israel must work hard to make these arrangements work in practice,' she added.

Rice praised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon for seeing through the deal, saying they both showed 'real statesmanship' by doing so.

'The important thing is that people have understood that there is an important balance here between security on the one hand, and on the other hand allowing the Palestinian people freedom of movement,' she said.

Rice, who managed to iron out final differences in a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz on Tuesday morning, added however that 'progress like today' could not continue unless a real war against terrorism took place simultaneously.

The deal announced Tuesday reaches further than the Rafah crossing and also includes Israeli approval to begin the construction of a sea port in Gaza and the opening of a link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Convoys of buses and trucks are expected to travel several times daily between the two territories.

Rice postponed her departure from the region to push both sides to accept the deal and put her political weight behind frantic but thus far fruitless mediation efforts by international envoy James Wolfensohn.

In a major, precedent-setting breakthrough, both sides had agreed to a European Union presence at the border, but had continued to argue about the extent of Israeli control over the border crossings.

The bickering led Wolfensohn to send an irritated letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, in which he accused Israel of acting 'as though there had been no withdrawal'.

The envoy even threatened to leave the region unless a breakthrough was made.