A senior Israeli defense official yesterday challenged the Palestinian Authority to slam shut the open border between Gaza and Egypt, saying its credibility was on the line over its failure to stop the flow of people, including gunrunners, across the frontier.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority have both said that they fear al-Qaeda terrorists will infiltrate into Gaza through the open Gaza-Egypt border, where Palestinians and Egyptians have been crossing largely unfettered since Israel withdrew from the area on Monday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday said the chaos at the border had been brought under control to a "very high degree." But on Thursday evening people were still crossing, though the numbers had dropped from previous days when thousands passed freely across the frontier.
PHOTO: AP
Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli Defense Ministry official, said weapons had been smuggled across the porous border and the rate of smuggling was likely to increase if the Palestinians failed to act quickly.
"The Palestinian authority is facing a supreme test of its credibility," he told Israel Army Radio. "They look like they're running a system which has neither law nor order, neither organization nor authority."
Egypt has started deploying 750 border troops to secure its side of the frontier and prevent weapons smuggling, but has so far failed to halt the flow of people and arms, including hundreds of assault rifles and pistols.
Gilad, however, said he believed the Egyptians would act.
"Egypt ... has to impose down to the smallest detail a regime of security ... to stop smuggling, to stop breaches of its sovereignty. As far as I understand the Egyptians, they are determined to do that," he said.
Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said the Israelis had caused the problem by not coordinating their Gaza pullout with the Palestinians.
"Mr. Gilad knows very well that the whole thing was unilateral," Erekat said. "We had to pick up the pieces after they left without them even telling us when they were going to leave."
SPEECH
Meanwhile, in a speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the Palestinians are entitled to their own state, and his country had no desire to rule over them. He urged reconciliation and compromise to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but said that after Israel's Gaza pullout it was now up to the Palestinians to "prove their desire for peace" by putting a halt to terror and disarming militants.
"The Palestinians will always be our neighbors. We respect them and have no aspiration to rule over them," Sharon said. "They are also entitled to freedom, and to a national, sovereign existence in a state of their own."
Sharon's Likud party passed a resolution in 2002 opposing a Palestinian state and also largely opposed the Gaza withdrawal.
NEW GROUPING
Commentators saw the UN speech, made in Hebrew and broadcast live during Israeli prime time, as indicating Sharon's intention to leave his divided party and seek a new, more centrist grouping.
"It sounded like the Prime Minister's statement of farewell to his party," Aluf Benn wrote in the Haaretz daily. "Sharon appeared to understand that he has no chance of winning in the Likud and must seek a new political way.
The Likud's governing central committee is to convene on Sept. 26 for what promises to be a stormy session in which former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to demand a date for primaries where he will challenge Sharon for the party leadership.
Netanyahu seized on Sharon's speech to accuse him of abandoning his conservative party faithful and turning soft on the Palestinians.
However, Palestinian Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib yesterday slammed Sharon's speech as a post-Gaza withdrawal PR stunt given the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
He criticized Sharon's call for Palestinians to now prove their desire for peace as lacking credibility because of Israeli plans to expand settlements and build its separation barrier in the West Bank.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
PINEAPPLE DEBATE: While the owners of the pizzeria dislike pineapple on pizza, a survey last year showed that over 50% of Britons either love or like the topping A trendy pizzeria in the English city of Norwich has declared war on pineapples, charging an eye-watering ￡100 (US$124) for a Hawaiian in a bid to put customers off the disputed topping. Lupa Pizza recently added pizza topped with ham and pineapple to its account on a food delivery app, writing in the description: “Yeah, for ￡100 you can have it. Order the champagne too! Go on, you monster!” “[We] vehemently dislike pineapple on pizza,” Lupa co-owner Francis Wolf said. “We feel like it doesn’t suit pizza at all,” he said. The other co-owner, head chef Quin Jianoran, said they kept tinned pineapple
RSS