28/12/2009 Hamas' prime minister in the Gaza Strip appealed to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday evening, calling on him to halt the construction of an underground separation fence on the Sinai border, which Hamas recently referred to as "a disaster to the Palestinian people."
In a speech marking the first anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Ismail Haniyyeh turned to "the air force hero" (Mubarak was the commander of the Egyptian Air Force during the Yom Kippur War) and told him, "We are not threatening Egypt's security, we are not interfering in Egypt's matters, and we were forced to use the tunnels as an exceptional default option due to the situation we were pushed into."
He added, "I call on you to open the Rafah crossing as well. You have a national and religious responsibility."
The "fence of death" was a reference to the huge steel wall currently under construction by Egyptian workers and supervised by US and French officials to enforce a more efficient isolation of the Gaza Strip population. The Palestinian Information Centre reported on details obtained from sources in Cairo saying that the death wall is conceived to function as a water-leaking system, by which existing tunnels will be flooded and anyone trying to build new tunnels would be drowned.
According to the report, on the Palestinian side of the steel wall holes will be dug, into which 20 to 30 meters long pipes would be inserted vertically and at a distance of 30 to 40 meters one from another; these pipes would be connected through a 10 km-long horizontal main pipeline, from which sea water would be poured into them. The pipes, equipped with holes, would then release the sea water into the soil causing existing tunnels to collapse and preventing new ones to be dug.
The comb-shaped pipe system would also destroy the soil on the Palestinian side of the steel wall, which would contemporaneously prevent the salty water from soaking Egyptian territory.
The Hamas prime minister added that the Palestinians would continue to insist on their principles, and presented his stand in favor of an overall Palestinian reconciliation. "Hamas believes in pluralism and in the political partnership, as well as in a democratic transfer of the regime."
The remarks were made on the backdrop of ongoing tensions between Hamas and Egypt, mainly due to the organization's refusal to sign Cairo's formula for a reconciliation agreement. Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman said about two weeks ago, "We don't work for Hamas and not for (Hamas politburo chief Khaled) Mashaal."
Haniyyeh called on the world to implement the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza. He asked the international community and the United Nations secretary to work to prosecute "the Israeli war criminals."
Senior Hamas member Dr. Khalil Al-Hayya said that the organization's military wing, the Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, "have managed to thwart all of the occupation's plots and plans."
Al-Hayya, who spoke to thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza, said that Hamas and the resistance organizations would not be defeated. "How will we be defeated when the rally marking Hamas' establishment pointed to the support of hundreds of thousands who arrived, and the masses swore to sacrifice themselves for Islam and for the Palestinian issue? I call on everyone to continue supporting the resistance and promise that Gaza will not fall during the war and in the Strip and those who will fall will be the Americans and the Israelis."
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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