Gaza welcomes respite as relations thaw and Egypt opens border
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — For much of the past year, Gaza has sat in frustrated isolation as it struggled to recover from a devastating war with Israel. But for the people of the battered coastal enclave, the past week brought some welcome signs of relief.
First, Egypt opened its border crossing, allowing thousands of Palestinians to exit Gaza after being penned in for months.
Then, Egypt allowed in 8,000 tons of cement, a fraction of what the territory needs to rebuild.
But the move suggested a thaw in relations between the Egyptian government and Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza.
Meanwhile, news has been emerging that Hamas has begun quiet negotiations with Israel via intermediaries to extend a truce and to ease the tight restrictions on the territory.
The shifts underscore how far Hamas has staked out its own path, bypassing its reliance on the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah, the administrative center of the West Bank, for money and reconstruction. And they came as the Ramallah government appeared close to collapse.
But while Hamas appears to be striking out on its own, partly in response to what it sees as intransigence by its rivals in Ramallah, there are concerns that its recent moves might undermine Palestinian unity and compromise the campaign for an independent state.
“There is some fear that we will have a separate state in Gaza,” said Sameer Abumdallala, an economics lecturer at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
“This is dangerous to the national Palestinian project.”
Gaza, a tiny territory that lies between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Desert, has been governed by Hamas for nine years, the product of an enduring political rift among Palestinians.
The Palestinian Authority rules communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in a government headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, also the leader of the Fatah party.
Hamas governs Gaza since driving out Fatah in 2007.
Many Palestinians view healing the rift and the formation of a unity government as the key to harnessing the energy of both parties and eventually achieving a Palestinian state.
But neither Hamas nor Fatah has been willing to loosen its grip on territory, despite years of pledges to seek reconciliation.