Pat Dollard | Young Americans

We went from this yesterday, to this:

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Egypt will close the breached border with Gaza on Sunday, and Hamas will not try to prevent it, a senior Hamas leader said after holding talks with Egyptian officials.

“Tomorrow (Sunday) is going to be the last day for the border to be open like this,” Gaza’s Hamas strongman, Mahmoud Zahar, told the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera, after returning to Gaza.

Haaretz:

Hamas will close the Gaza Strip’s breached border with Egypt in coordination with Cairo, a senior official from the Palestinian faction said on Saturday, one day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh vowed to prevent Egypt from resealing the frontier.

“We will work to close the border between us and Egypt,” Mahmoud al-Zahar told reporters upon returning to Gaza from talks in Cairo. “We will restore control over this border, in cooperation with Egypt and gradually.”

Earlier, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum claimed Egypt has agreed to an interim arrangement, under which a joint Egyptian-Palestinian committee would be set up to control limited border traffic. The claim could not immediately be confirmed independently, and Egyptian officials were not available for comment.

So far Egyptian attempts to seal the border have been largely unsuccessful.

On Friday, Hamas militants hauled away metal spikes that Egyptian soldiers had placed at sections of the Gaza-Egypt border in an attempt to stop the influx of Gazans.

Ever since Hamas-allied militants toppled the border wall Jan. 23 with a series of explosions, Hamas militants have stopped several attempts by Egypt to reseal the frontier. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have rushed into Egypt, shopping and visiting relatives, but most have returned to Gaza.

Hamas wants a role in running the border with Egypt, a demand rejected this week by Egypt and Hamas’ rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Haniyeh said he would not allow the border to be resealed. “The Palestinian people have many options,” Haniyeh was quoted as telling the pro-Hamas daily Palestine.

Hamas also announced Saturday that it would accept the return of European Union monitors to the Rafah border crossing on condition they reside in Egypt or Gaza.

Mohammed Nasser, a senior negotiator on behalf of Hamas who is in Cairo for talks on the future of the Gaza-Egypt border, said that Hamas has reservations about the international agreement requiring the monitors to be present at the border point.

The Hamas delegation has not received clarifications on its reservations, Nasser said. The delegation is expected to return to Gaza on Saturday without holding talks with a Palestinian Authority delegation, which is also in Cairo negotiating the future of the border crossing.

Haniyeh announced Friday that his organization will do everything to prevent Egypt from sealing its border with the Gaza Strip, a week and a half after Palestinian gunmen blew holes in the barrier separating Gaza from Egypt, prompting hundreds of the thousands of Gazans to flood across the frontier.

The Hamas leader was also quoted Saturday as saying that Gaza must forge stronger economic ties with Egypt as a way of disconnecting from Israel.

Haniyeh also told the daily in an interview published Saturday that Hamas would like to see Gaza’s economy cut its ties with Israel, and instead receive fuel and electricity from Egypt.

“We have said from the days of our election campaign that we want to move toward economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation,” Haniyeh said.

Egypt has a greater ability to meet the needs of Gaza, he added.

Last month’s border breach came several days after Israel had imposed a complete blockade on Gaza, with Egyptian backing, in response to a rocket barrage from Gaza on Israeli border towns. For the past seven months, since Hamas’ takeover of Gaza, Israel and Egypt have severely restricted access to the territory.

On Friday, about 600 Hamas supporters rallied about 100 meters from the nearest Egyptian border post. Later Saturday, women supporters of Hamas were to stage a border protest.

Egypt and Abbas have proposed returning to an internationally backed arrangement for the Gaza-Egypt border that would shut out Hamas and grant Israel the final say over operations there. The arrangement was negotiated in 2005, after Israel’s pullout from Gaza. However, the border has been closed for long stretches since then, including in response to the Hamas takeover.

“The Palestinian people have many options” Haniyeh was quoted as telling the pro-Hamas daily Palestine in an interview published Friday, when asked about the methods Hamas was planning to use to prevent the closing of the breached border. He did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities on Friday reported that they had arrested 12 Hamas militants, armed with explosives, within Egyptian borders. The men, having entered Sinai through the breach in the border, were apparently planning to carry out attacks against tourists in Sinai.