The situation on the Gaza/Egypt Border has become complicated and complex. At time of writing (evening, Tuesday 5 Feb) several new factors have emerged:
1) Two “suicide bombers” have been killed in the Israeli Negev town of Dimona. One blew himself up, the other, wounded, was shot by an Israeli policeman, who has been promoted for his action.
Note: Dimona, an Israeli poverty-stricken “development” (=slum) town, is also the home of the Israeli atomic bomb factory and of a nuclear power station. The existence of the bomb factory was revealed two decades ago by Mordechai Vanunu, who worked there as a technician. One of the reasons which motivated Vanunu to go public (he gave a story and his photos to the London Times) was his fear that the power plant and the (then secret) atomic bomb facilities were unsafe, and that a Chernobyl-type nuclear accident could spread radio-active fall-out over Israel, Palestine, and the entire region.
2) Initially the two suicide bombers were described as coming from Gaza. The Israeli government intended (and intends ?) to use this attack to maintain its pressure for the immediate and total closure of the – still partially open – Gaza/Egypt border. This bombing should, so the Israeli establishment, emphasise the “SECURITY NEED” for the total control of all Palestinian/Gazan movements.
3) Unfortunately for this thesis, our latest information indicates the two “bombers” came, not from “open” Hamas-administered Gaza, but from the Israeli-controlled “West Bank”, more precisely from the already totally Army-occupied town of Hebron. This rather invalidates one of “the Gaza Border must be absolutely sealed” arguments. Or another, that another (very long, very expensive) wall must be built, maintained, manned, between Israel and Egypt
4) It seems that the bombers probably moved from Hebron southwards, from the Southern West-Bank. In this region the Wall, which already cuts thru much of the rest of the West-Bank, has not been “completed”, leaving a fairly open passage through the desert into the Israeli Negev desert.
According to Adam Keller, activist and editor of the left-wing Israeli publication:
“The Other Israel” – otherisr@actcom.co.il; POB 2542; HOLON 58125 ; ISRAEL
Phone: 972 (0) 3 556 5804 Fax: 972 (0)3 5565804
the planned completion of this “southern Wall” – some 50 kms remain to be built to seal off the Palestinians from all “free” contacts with the outside – has run into several problems: a) some right-wing settlers object, for the presently planned route would leave them on the “Palestinian”,the “in”-side
b) Nature-lovers, Greenies, Environmentalists and Biblical “animal sentimentalists” fear for the survival of the last “desert tigers”, a very endangered “big-cat” whose habitat, already greatly endangered, would be totally ruined by the construction of the wall.
Other sources note that c) the expense of building an impassable barrier wall thru another 50 kilometers of mostly desert can not be justified here, as the wall has been elsewhere, by transferring fertile land from Palestinian farmers to Israeli construction companies.
5) As we have pointed out in our previous notes (ref MT, MU) Egyptian “security forces” would be unable to resist a determined, massive, push by Gazans to open the now lightly blocked frontier, unless the Hamas administration of Gaza actively discourages, and prevents such a movement from the Gaza side. Such action would be highly unpopular – Gazans enjoyed their briefly conquered freedom. Will Hamas’s Gaza leaders be willing to risk their popularity with the local population in a quest for the recognition and respectability” ? they might gain thru a formal agreement on some type of joint-border control with the Egyptian Mubarak government ?
6) Of course the Israeli-allied Abbas administration remains totally opposed to any such “respectabilisation” of Hamas. Abbas, the Israeli government, and above all Washington, want to stamp Hamas as terrible terrorists. To – as in the quickly forgotten “Annapolis negotiations” be “ignored and excluded”. But how to close the Gaza frontier, unless Hamas cooperates ? By showing everybody the danger of an open border ? As in Dimona ?
It remains rather interesting to determine – if possible – who exactly were the Dimona Bombers ? Apparently not from Hamas. Nor from its well-wishers.
6) From the Abbas, Israeli and Washington aspect, the Dimona bombing is, one could almost say, a GODSEND. IF IT HADN’T HAPPENED “ANYWAY”, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN USEFUL TO PROVOKE IT, OR A SIMILAR EVENT, PERHAPS BY SOME WELL- (OR BADLY) – AIMED ISRAELI AIR STRIKES, ASSASSINATIONS, OR KILLING OF HAMAS ACTIVISTS ? THIS ALL TO MAKE IT ABSOLUTELY EVIDENT THAT PALESTINIANS, IN GAZA OR ELSEHWERE, MUST REMAIN FIRMLY LOCKED UP. IMPRISONED.