More than 3,500 Palestinians have been stranded at the crossing

CAIRO - Israel Friday, August 6, reopened the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza ending a 19-day closure, after coming under an international wave of outcry for causing the suffering of 3,500 Palestinians stranded in worsening living conditions.

A first busload of 50 Palestinians drove across the border at about10 a.m. ( 8 a.m. ) and others will follow during the day, an Egyptian official was quoted by Reuters as saying Friday.

Some 1,500 Palestinians have gathered at the border over the period of the closure and another 2,000 have been waiting in hotels in the north Sinai region, officials said.

Israelshut the border July 18, saying it was checking an alleged plan to blow up the crossing point.

It is in an area where Israeli forces regularly play a bloody game of cat-and-mouse with resistance fighters who allegedly dig tunnels to smuggle guns and explosives into Gaza, according to Reuters.

It is Gaza’s only exit to the outside world but it remains under Israeli control and could remain under Israel’s supervision even if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon goes ahead with a plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian officials said Israeland the Palestinians agreed that no one could cross from Gaza into Egypt until the Israelis deal with the backlog of Palestinians wanting to go home.

Appalling Human Conditions

The Egyptian Red Crescent Society has complained the situation at the crossing was getting out of control, as humanitarian conditions of the stranded Palestinians were deeply deteriorating.

The Palestinians, foreign governments and rights groups have all raised concerns about the worsening conditions on the border where three pregnant women have suffered miscarriages in the last few days.

Two Palestinians died at the crossing, where men and women of all ages are crammed into a parking lot about half the size of a soccer field with only two doors for ventilation and straw mats serving as beds.

In earlier closures, Israeli authorities used to make some exceptions for the elderly and patients. But the latest one saw no exceptions at all.

Israeli soldiers denied access to a Palestinian mother accompanying the body of her nine-year-old daughter, who breathed her last at Cairo’s Naser Hospital for Cancer Tumors.

Egyptian authorities allowed the mother to burry Hend Manna Abu Shiha in the northern nearby city of Al-Arish.

International Appeal

The reopening of the crossing came after an international appeal to Israel to open the crossing to ameliorate the suffering of the Palestinians stuck on the borders.

The United States, Israel’s close ally, had said it was deeply concerned about the stranded Palestinians.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said earlier this week that the United States was pressing Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resolve the crisis.

“We are aware (of) the situation and we are deeply concerned about it,” he said. “It is a humanitarian problem that disturbs us.”

The border was first sealed off July 10 and has only briefly opened on two occasions since then.

Egypt appealed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan this week to intercede on their behalf, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.