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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

That Gaza open-air prison

AP reports on a mother and daughter stuck in Gaza:
An Irish woman who crossed a breached border into Gaza with her daughter said Wednesday that border guards were preventing them from returning to Egypt.

Treasa Ni Cheannabhain said she and her daughter, an Egyptian national, entered Gaza on Saturday, more than a week after Hamas militants knocked down the border wall.

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded into Egypt, Ni Cheannabhain, 56, said she sneaked into Gaza with her 19-year-old daughter, Naisrin el-Safty, to distribute money to needy Gazans.

Egyptian guards resealed the border Sunday, ending the 12-day breach. Ni Cheannabhain said she had not heard warnings that the crossing would close.

The pair tried to return to Egypt late Tuesday, but were stopped by Egyptian border guards.

"I admitted I entered illegally, but we want to come back in legally," Ni Cheannabhain said in a telephone interview from the border town of Rafah.

Ni Cheannabhain is married to an Egyptian physician.

Ireland's Foreign Ministry is trying to help but only Egypt can authorize the pair's return, a ministry spokesman said.

"The Egyptian authorities apparently are refusing to let her cross back over to Egypt," said the spokesman on customary condition of anonymity.
As we all know, Gaza is an open-air prison run by the heartless Zionists. So this must be Israel's fault, by definition.

The entire world that blamed Israel for its not allowing Gazans to freely come and bomb Jews - and ignored the many hundreds of people Israel did allow to leave for medical or religious reasons - somehow remains silent when forced to confront the fact that Gaza is bordered by two countries, not one, and that Egypt can allow its fellow Arabs to roam freely back and forth as well.

(h/t Global_Freezing)