Shame on you!

As you probably know "Rafah crossing" is the only way for the Palestinians to enter Gaza, however it isn’t always open as the Egyptian government opens it occasionally according to the mood and the requirements of its political image. I’ve always hated this fact and thought that this way we help Israel to tighten the siege on the residents of Gaza. However when the government opens the borders I don’t see it as a heroic action but rather as the normal way things should be.

As a result of the occasional opening of the borders, the people of Gaza who work abroad are afraid of getting in to visit their relatives as they might not be able to get back to the countries where they work. However, because of the last wave of the Egyptian government generosity the crossing was open to an unlimited end. So, a friend of my brother in law who lives and work in Qatar with his family decided to take them to Gaza through the Egyptian borders to visit his parents there. He didn’t tell me about what he’s gone through to get in, however the shameful fact was in his way out. When Palestinians cross the borders out of Gaza, they’re not allowed to actually enter the Egyptian lands and so the procedure is that whenever you cross the borders you’ll be locked on the Egyptian side till the end of the day (8 PM) then you will be taken in a van (a police van or a similar one) to the airport. There you’ll be locked again in a small room till your flight time, and only God knows the kind of people you might be locked up with. This procedure is applied on everyone regardless of age and sex. So, this friend and his family had to go through this and all the way they heard comments referring to the fact that they’re treated this way because they belong to Hamas!

My brother in law believed that this was done to force Hamas, who is ruling Gaza, to sign the conciliation paper with Fat7 that Egypt has proposed so that Egypt can regain its image (and I’m not going to say role because a role is not that easy to regain) as the big sister of the Arab countries in the region.

So shame on you who gave the orders for this and shame on you carried out this and shame on you who are remaining silent about this.