Sealing the Border?

Eleven days after Hamas breached the Gaza-Egypt border and unleashed a torrent of humanity, including Palestinian terrorists in an invasion of Egypt, the Egyptians have finally closed the border. Maybe.

The Egyptian troops and police were allowing Gazans and Egyptians to cross the border to return to their homes, but prevented any new cross-border movement.

Egypt has made earlier attempts to close the border, but this time, after a visit to Cairo by senior Hamas officials, Hamas gunmen were cooperating with the Egyptians instead of seeking to thwart them.

On Saturday, Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official, said that the group, which runs Gaza, would cooperate with Egypt to close the border, breached before dawn a week ago Wednesday by Hamas land mines.

Mr. Zahar said his group’s gunmen would be removed from the Gaza side of the border and that efforts would be made to avoid any violence or confrontation with Egyptian border guards. Mr. Zahar spoke on his return to Gaza after taking part in talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, blew up sections of a wall along the border with Egypt on Jan. 23, days after Israel sealed its border crossings with Gaza in response to intensified rocket fire against Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have since crossed in and out of Egypt to stock up on supplies and other merchandise.

On Friday, Egypt tried to stop Palestinian vehicles from crossing the border but Hamas militants were seen removing the metal barricades and spikes laid down by the Egyptian police.

Hamas has gotten what it needs from Egypt - the means and materials to continues its onslaught against Israel. They won a huge propaganda victory because the media failed to ask serious questions over how the entire circumstances of the latest incident was stage managed from inception through to the current phase.

It was all designed to make Israel look bad, despite the fact that Israel was simply engaging in self defense. Of course, the media and world diplomats hate when Israel defends itself against mortal enemies, so they were predisposed to images of Gazans suffering by candle light - in the middle of the day.

The invasion of Egypt by Hamas thugs enabled them to obtain more advanced weapons. Go figure. Egypt says that this wont happen again. Right, just like they looked the other way as Hamas spent weeks preparing for the invasion by cutting the border fences with blowtorches and no one noticed?