Dozens of policemen in riot gear at Egyptian checkpoints set up in the pouring rain just a few miles from the border with Gaza yesterday failed to halt the relentless flow of Palestinians into Egypt five days after the border was breached.
Taiser Shuber had spent two days in Sheik Zuwayed, a town about 12 miles into northern Sinai, where he savored his first trip outside the Palestinian territories. Yesterday he waited for a lift on to El Arish, a large coastal center to which many Palestinians were headed.
He climbed on board a pick-up truck, one of a dozen passengers wedged into the back, each paying 20 Egyptian pounds (£2) for what would have been a brief 20-minute drive along the main road. But to avoid the now frequent police checkpoints the truck took a tortuous journey along Bedouin tracks through the desert for two and a half hours. Twice the truck became wedged in the sand until Shuber, 30, and his fellow passengers got out to push.
Once in El Arish he found, to his dismay, that the police had closed all the shops and restaurants in an effort to send the hordes of Palestinian shoppers home.
"I don’t know where I’m going. I just came to have a look," said Shuber. "I was hoping to buy some electronics, maybe a food mixer for the kitchen or something for the children. But the prices have gone up and most of the shops are shut."
Egyptian officials say they intend to close the border soon but they appear overwhelmed by the flood of people crossing. The West Bank government of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has little control in Gaza, said it would run the official Rafah crossing with Egypt, excluding Hamas, the Islamist group that effectively runs Gaza. But that seemed unlikely in the short term. Hamas officials were to travel to Cairo to discuss the crisis.
After a new hole was bulldozed through the border wall on Saturday, a flood of cars crossed over: Palestinians driving into Egypt and Egyptians, most loaded with food or fuel for sale, driving into Gaza. The UN estimates that more than 700,000 Palestinians have crossed since large sections of the wall were brought down by explosives last week.
Shuber, a salary-earning member of the Palestinian security forces, had borrowed money from his friends to shop for goods they could not find in Gaza, where an Israeli economic blockade has tightened over the past two years. "We were hoping that opening the borders with Egypt would bring us relief," he said. "But it doesn’t solve the problem. It’s only going to be temporary and things are likely to get worse again."
The only shops open in El Arish yesterday were pharmacies. Sameh Ghoul, 26, the owner of one pharmacy, had sold dozens of packets of cold and flu medicines to Palestinians who relished the far cheaper prices. As he spoke, another Gazan customer came in and ordered several tubes of face cream and sun screen.
"I came here to buy tables, chairs, carpets, even cheese. All the things I thought I could sell back in Gaza," said the Palestinian.
Some had put up with long and difficult journeys. Sara el-Masri and her son, Ahmad, 12, had been made to walk through the desert for three hours on Saturday to bypass the checkpoints. She returned only with a handful of gifts from a friend she had visited. "I wanted to come for the adventure. In Gaza we have nowhere to go," she said. "I just wanted to see something different."