DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 2, 2011,
Just four days after the much-heralded opening of the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Sinai to free passage, Cairo virtually shut it down Tuesday, May 31, by a series of tight bureaucratic restrictions on Palestinian exit and entry.
debkafile’s military and Washington sources disclose that Military Council Chairman Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi personally signed the new orders in response to an insistent US demand based on the information that since the Rafah crossing opened to free passage Saturday, May 28, Palestinian and al Qaeda terrorists had swarmed through and were roaming at large across Sinai and laying the Suez Canal and its coastal cities open to attack. Washington warned him that terrorists still unlisted by Western or Egyptian counter-terror agencies would be free to reach Egypt, carry out attacks and return to the Gaza Strip unhindered unless careful restrictions were imposed to weed them out.
Tuesday, May 31, Tantawi informed Washington that new restrictions virtually shutting down the Rafah crossing were in place. Egypt then acceded to a US request to receive an Israeli defense official and discuss security coordination between Cairo and Jerusalem around their borders.
Amos Gilad, political adviser at the Israeli Defense Ministry, arrived in Cairo Wednesday and held talks with Egyptian officials, including intelligence minister Murad Muwafi, who briefed him on the new security measures at the Rafah border crossing, as first revealed here by debkafile’s military sources:
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1. Egypt has handed the Hamas government a blacklist of 5,000 Palestinians barred from access to the Rafah border post and entry to Egypt. It covers the entire operations levels of the military arms of Hamas, Jihad Islami, the Palestinian “Fronts” and other extremist organizations based in the Gaza Strip.
2. Daily passage is limited to a quota of 400 – compared with 1,000-2,000 Palestinians who accessed the crossing in its first three days.
3. Palestinians seeking to travel for medical treatment will first be examined by an Egyptian medical panel which must approve their applications.
4. Cairo wants the list of 400 candidates for passage submitted in advance and does not promise permits for them all.
When informed of the new restrictions, Hamas leaders hit the ceiling and threatened Egypt’s military rulers with painful payback. Mahmoud a-Zahar, a top Hamas official in Gaza, was especially aggrieved. The news reached him in Damascus where he had boasted of Hamas-Gaza’s success in achieving free passage between the Palestinian enclave and Egypt. Its leaders are now threatening, among other punitive measures, to have its troops shut down the Rafah crossing hermetically and show the world “the real face” of the military rulers of Egypt towards the Palestinians.
dweller: no, I am daughter of USN veteran of WW2 and Korea. The USS G H W Bush carrier group is now in the Sixth Fleet arena, the Mediterranean, and whether she stops off the coast of Libya for a few weeks is yet unknown (no news since May 31), but she will have to transit the Suez Canal for her eventual deployment in the Fifth Fleet (Red to Arabian Sea -Yemen to Pakistan ) theatre. Her first stop was off Portsmouth, UK – for NATO joint exercise “Saxon Warrior” May 19-26, followed by a very happy shore leave. http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=60543
The last time a US carrier had shore leave in Turkey was most unpleasant, so my guess is Italy again, but I can dream of the symbolism of 5,000-6,300 USN having a wonderful time in Haifa. Once a carrier group is deployed in the Fifth Fleet arena, they have to go to India for shore leave or base in Bahrain. We tend to call our USN ships “she”, but the USS GHWBush carrier group is the first ever to be commanded by a female Rear Admiral, Nora Tyson, so “she” seems doubly apt. The carrier itself is huge, and I hope she will somehow scare off the next Gaza flotilla just by being in the way.
I assume whatever the US told Egypt about getting the Sinai and Suez under control was in part due to the pending transit of this carrier group.
Do I take that to mean you are G.I.?
This is hillarious. The Egyptians have suddenly discovered that terrorists are dangerous — and it took the Americans to tell them the obvious. Nobody seems concerned, though, about weapons flowing across the border the other way, into Israel. Needless to say, the peaceniks will not protest against Egypt’s “security fence”. Google News isn’t even covering the closure yet: They’re still reporting about the boder opening.
never underestimate American mettle when it comes to the Suez Canal, even with the current president.
as the USS George H W Bush carrier group transits, perhaps the Sinai will get a real scrubbing. (please, no complaints about the carrier name – take a look at this newest super-carrier. What a beauty! I hope for shore leave in Haifa (ok, it will probably be Italy or Greece – definitely not Turkey), after they do whatever while transiting the Med the next two or so weeks.
It’s called “NIP THE EVIL IN THE BUD.”
Translation:
They locked the stable
after the horses were stolen.
” …an insistent US demand”?
What in hell could they have possibly expected to happen when they OPENED the crossing?