Egypt opened its borders with the Gaza Strip for the first time in months Saturday, allowing Palestinians to enter and leave the isolated coastal strip.That was optimistic:
The Rafah border crossing will operate for six hours a day for the coming three days and 15,000 people Palestinians have applied to exit to Egypt, said Maher Abu Sabha, head of the Gaza side of the crossing. He said those were humanitarian cases and included medical patients, students, and Arab residents whose residency permits were about to expire. However, he said only 1,500 of those were actually expected to pass through.
Passage through the Rafah border crossing on the southern Gaza border was interrupted Sunday morning after the crossing's computer systems malfunctioned, Egyptian security serves told Ma'an.In the end, on Sunday some 516 Gazans left and 309 arrived, after all the media coverage about how Egypt was magnanimously allowing Gazans to travel for Ramadan.
The computer glitch came as telecommunication and internet networks were disconnected due to ongoing military activity in the northern Sinai, where the Egyptian army is pitched against a militant insurgency.
Sources told Ma’an that only seven Palestinians had passed through the terminal as of noon Sunday.
They said that only 100 Palestinian travelers travelling from Egypt into Gaza were waiting at the passenger hall on the Egyptian side of the terminal.
Sources added that 15 cement trucks were readying to cross into Gaza.
They said that on Saturday 573 Palestinians had crossed from Gaza into Egypt, and 246 crossed from Egypt to Gaza.
How does this compare to the umber of people Israel allows to cross the Erez crossing every day?
On Thursday, 892 people crossed into Israel and 902 crossed into Gaza.
In other words every day Israel allows twice as many people to cross into and from enemy territory than Egypt does a few times a year from land controlled by its supposed Arab brothers.