26/12/2009 International activists planning to enter Gaza from Egypt for a march appealed to President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday to allow them to enter the blockaded enclave through the Rafah crossing.
Organizers of the Gaza Freedom March had earlier said they would try to defy the ban after Egypt turned down their request to pass through Rafah, the Gaza Strip's only crossing that bypasses the occupied territories. "We plead to you to let the Gaza Freedom March continue so that we can join the Palestinians of Gaza to march together on December 31," the activists said in a statement addressed to Mubarak.
Egypt said it would prevent their passage because of the "sensitive situation" in Gaza and warned Monday of legal repercussions for anyone defying the ban.
Around 1,300 international delegates from 42 countries have signed up to join the Gaza Freedom March which was due to enter Gaza via Egypt during the last week of December.
From Gaza, a committee to break the siege set up by the Gaza Strip administration called on the Egyptian government to facilitate the arrival of the international aid convoy headed by George Galloway and endorsed by many prominent figures such as the US scholar Noam Chomsky and others. The committee expressed concern at the Egyptian moves to put obstacles in the way of the convoy bringing food, medicine and other primary goods to the Gaza Strip residents, who have been under Israeli siege for the past four years.
The committee called on the Egyptian government to lift the siege instead of participating in it by building the "wall of death." The reference was 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.
In the Gaza Strip mass demonstrations were held against Egypt's plan to build the steel wall which claimed its first victim on Friday.
According to Palestinian security sources, a Palestinian man was killed after a tunnel collapsed over him due to the Egyptian excavation.
During the demonstration, Hamas spokesperson Hammad Al-Ruqab urged Cairo to open the Rafah border crossing and facilitate the entry of food and construction materials needed to rebuild Gaza which is in ruins due to Israel's war which left thousands of homes destroyed last year.
"We in the Hamas movement announce our deep shock at the construction of the wall which bypasses every diplomatic rule. Egypt is building the wall between Gaza and Egypt in a sensitive period of time," Ma'an news agency quoted Al-Ruqab as saying.
Reports revealed earlier in December that Egypt was building an underground wall with a depth of 30 meters and 10 kilometers long along the Rafah border.
Turkish parliamentarians and politicians raised their voices describing the Egyptian steel wall as a new instrument meant to kill Palestinians.
Talking to Al-Alam TV, Muhammad Patuk, vice-chairman of Turkey's Saadet Party said on Christmas Eve, it is difficult to look on as Palestinians face additional oppression from the Egyptian side, which is seen helping the Israeli occupation forces turning the Gaza Strip into an open-air prison.
Uprooted Palestinian
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