Palestinians Clash Over Control Of Border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Times
by James Hider - January 28, 2008 - 7:22pm

The Palestinian Government of Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that it had reached a deal with Egypt to take control of the Gaza border, which Hamas militants breached with blowtorches and explosives last week, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to cross. Within hours Hamas officials denied that any such agreement side-lining the Islamists had been sealed with Cairo, which is struggling to contain the chaos that erupted on its border last week.

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Abu Mazen’s Conundrum
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Miftah
by Caelum Moffatt - January 25, 2008 - 6:24pm

Israel’s current siege of Gaza must be inflicting the Palestinian President, Abu Mazen, with a sharp pain to the temples. This ache, which has been intermittent since June 2007, is undoubtedly caused this time by the confusion over how to act in response to the newest demonstration of Israeli aggression. The 1.5 million people of Gaza, the president’s people, are caught up as innocent victims in a fray between Palestinian rockets from the coastal strip and Israeli air strikes.

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Busting The Blockade
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Economist
January 25, 2008 - 6:18pm

UNDER the pressure of Israeli sanctions, Gaza this week blew a gasket. On January 23rd Palestinian militants blasted holes in the metal wall along the sealed Gaza-Egypt border. A bulldozer broadened the gaps. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured through to buy fuel, food, spare parts and other supplies. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was annoyed but ordered his troops to let them in, saying they were “starving due to an Israeli siege”.

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Israel Torn Over Relationship With Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bbc News
by Martin Patience - January 25, 2008 - 6:17pm

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert delivered a keynote speech on Wednesday night presenting himself as an experienced leader in difficult times. But notably absent was any mention of the tens of thousands of Palestinians crossing from Gaza into Egypt after the militant group Hamas blew up sections of the border fence. Israel is closely monitoring the situation but is reluctant to use force to end the crisis, which would be likely to spark international condemnation.

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Hamas Challenges Egypt's Bid To Close Gaza Border
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
by Nidal Al-mughrabi - January 25, 2008 - 6:11pm

Egypt started to close its breached border with the Gaza Strip on Friday but Palestinian militants bulldozed a new opening in a challenge to Cairo and Israel's blockade of the Hamas-run territory. Palestinian crowds cheered as Hamas militants used a bulldozer to flatten sections of the chain and concrete fence. In a scene broadcast live on television around the world, Egyptian riot police watched from a distance as hundreds of people poured into Egypt.

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Opportunity In Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
(Editorial) January 24, 2008 - 6:07pm

The closure imposed a year ago on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt was effectively lifted yesterday after hundreds of thousands of Gazans overran the Egyptian border. According to United Nations reports, about 20 percent of Gaza's population crossed into the Egyptian side of Rafah on foot and in cars after explosives were used to destroy about two-thirds of the border barrier overnight Tuesday.

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Analysis: Gaza Border Breach Shows Israel That Hamas Is In Charge
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Amoss Harel, Avi Issacharoff - (Analysis) January 24, 2008 - 6:06pm

A few Israel Defense Forces Engineering Corps officers surely shed a tear yesterday while viewing the television reports from Rafah: The barrier built by the IDF with blood and sweat along the Philadelphi Route, on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt, was coming down.

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A Broken Society
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian
(Editorial) January 24, 2008 - 6:02pm

If you bottle up 1.5 million people in a territory 25 miles long and six miles wide, and turn off the lights, as Israel has done in Gaza, the bottle will burst. This is what happened yesterday when tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt to buy food, fuel and supplies after militants destroyed two-thirds of the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt. It was the biggest jail break in history.

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Politics: U.s. Stymies Security Council Action On Gaza
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Inter Press Service (IPS)
by Haider Rizvi - January 24, 2008 - 6:00pm

Despite intensifying calls for international pressure to address the fast deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip, observers and some diplomats say the U.N. Security Council has proved as ineffective as it has been for many years concerning issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On Tuesday, the Council called an emergency meeting during which a vast majority of delegates strongly condemned Israel's blockade of the occupied Palestinian areas and charged that it was violating international humanitarian law.

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As Gazans Pour Across, A Region Alters
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Rushdi Abu Alouf, Richard Bourdreaux - January 24, 2008 - 5:55pm

The collapse of Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday altered the region's political and security landscape as suddenly as it changed the fortunes of Palestinians who poured out of the enclave to stock up on goods made scarce by an Israeli blockade. After masked gunmen used land mines to blast through a 7-mile-long border wall, tens of thousands of jubilant Gazans went on an Egyptian spree, buying gasoline, heating oil, rice, sugar, milk, cheese, cigarettes, tires, cement, television sets and cellphones.

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