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Staten Island Advance · Staten Island, New York · 27 November 2005

CP-2005-002

Gazans pass through first Palestinian-run border

Border open for only four hours

Ibrahim Barzak, The Associated Press, Rafah Terminal

Gazans pass through first Palestinian-run border — Staten Island Advance, 27 November 2005
Staten Island Advance · Staten Island, New York · 27 November 2005

Transcribed from the clipping

“RAFAH TERMINAL, Gaza Strip — It was a smooth debut Saturday for the first Palestinian-run border. Hundreds of travelers zipped through passport control without having to submit to Israeli security checks, savoring their new freedom after 38 years of military occupation… Under a U.S.-brokered deal, the Palestinians are in charge, with backup from European monitors. Israel watches over closed-circuit TV, but cannot veto travelers. Jihad Zanoun, 30, a government employee, was the first to cross. ‘It is the beginning of a new era that will open a new horizon for me,’ said Zanoun, who was visiting relatives in Egypt. The border was open for just four hours Saturday — a day after Palestinians took control with an inauguration ceremony — to give European monitors more time to settle in, but it will eventually operate around the clock. European officials said 1,587 people crossed on the first day. ‘We are extremely happy,’ said Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. ‘It has gone very smoothly.’ For fenced-in Gazans, the opening of the border between Gaza and Egypt marked the most dramatic improvement in their lives since Israel withdrew from the coastal strip in September. Before the pullout, Israelis security checks at Rafah — meant to stop militants and weapons smuggling — often caused delays of hours or days. During the last five years of fighting, Israel also imposed travel restrictions on the ages of 18-45, and most couldn’t leave.”

Context added by this archive

The first man through a border his own government ran. The photograph beside him shows a Palestinian traveler shouting as she protests the four-hour opening. The Chronicle Tribune carried the same dispatch as “First Palestinian-run border opens.” Photo credit: Amr Nabil / The Associated Press.

Cite this item

"Gazans pass through first Palestinian-run border," Staten Island Advance, 27 November 2005. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2005-002. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2005-002

Elsewhere in the archive

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. The city is derived from the masthead, not read off the clipping.

Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-2005-002.

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