Gaza goes beserk
DEBKAfile reports that the Egyptians and Palestinians are making mockery of their accords with Israel following the pull-out from Gaza. There was a "total loss of control" by the Palestinian Authority and Egyptian border police, as "tens of thousands of Palestinians indulged in a wild orgy of destruction, burning, looting and hurling themselves back and forth across the Gazan-Egyptian border unchecked":
Not a single Palestinian security officer was visible on the horizon. Egyptian border police, deployed under a binding protocol with Israel to block the border to unauthorized traffic, obligingly helped infiltrators clamber over the wall marking the frontier.
Many Palestinians were no doubt spontaneously celebrating a sense of freedom. But, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, this spontaneity was exploited if not generated by the Hamas and Jihad Islami terrorist groups. With the help of Egyptian troops, they used the tide of people to cover the illegal transfer from northern Sinai into the Gaza Strip of hundreds of terrorists with sidearms, Qassam missiles, long-range rockets, and anti-tank and ground-air missiles.
Despite pleading and protests from the Israelis, nothing was being done. Then, it appears, the Israelis were handed a fait accompli:
Egypt had decided to give the Palestinians another 96 hours of freedom to cross the open border - up until Saturday Sept 17.
Mofaz [the Israeli defense minister] was struck dumb. The entire edifice of agreements including a new military protocol between Israel and Egypt had been swept away overnight – not just by the Palestinians, but by Cairo. He realized he had no guarantee that the guard posts would be standing by Saturday or that no more excuses would be offered for reneging on the protocol provisions.
The next chapter unfolded Tuesday evening, when the Egyptians and the Palestinians came to their own arrangement for 2,400 Palestinian security police to be deployed along the Gaza-Egyptian border. These “crack troops” are the phantom army which Palestinian Authority when under pressure hauls out “to fight terrorists” and “impose law and order.” This “army” becomes invisible when such emergencies arise or else it melts into the general fray…
The utter destruction wrought by Palestinian mobs and the total failure of the Palestinian Authority to save from vandals and looters - even the greenhouses and industrial center that would have provided 26,000 jobs for a needy populace, will make well-intentioned outside bodies think twice before offering development and reconstruction assistance.
It may make them think twice, but we predict that the international media will continue to look the other way and the governments of the EU and elsewhere will continue to pump money into the discredited Palestinian Authority.
