The sad state of the Rafah Crossing

The EU Representative to the Palestinian Authority, Christian Berger, said in an interview in East Jerusalem that the EU stands ready, if asked, to “come back and resume the tasks of monitoring the [Rafah] crossing point”.

As part of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, a bilateral agreement between Israel, after its unilateral “disengagement” from Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority (PA), the EU played a required “Third Party” monitoring role in what they named their EU Border Assistance Mission, or EUBAM.  The Europeans tweaked the mandate, however, to include provision of assistance in the form of Palestinian capacity-building.

Asked if there needs to be a new agreement, now that Egypt has made an apparently unilateral decision to open its only border crossing with Gaza, via Rafah, Berger replied that this “has to be discussed with the parties, to find what they want and what they need.  Again, the European Union has offered its assistance.  So, if it’s seen necessary, if it’s seen useful, they we are ready to do this.  And we still have a small contingent in Ashkelon that can be deployed and can be expanded, if necessary, to the size as it used to be before the closure of Rafah”.

Berger said: “One important element of the agreement was that the Israeli authorities would be informed of what was going on at the crossing point.  This was partly through live feed video transmissions, and partly through on-line computer transmissions of all the ID card numbers of people who were crossing, in either way.  But, it’s an integral part of the agreement, so when these transmissions — or the work of the liaison office in Kerem Shalom — was not possible, then the border post had to be closed.  That’s an integral part of the agreement”.

The liaison office was staffed by a tripartite group of Palestinians, Israelis and Europeans.  It was  located at Kerem Shalom, near where IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit was captured in a raid from Gaza in late June 2006, just six months after the Agreement went into effect.  Shalit is still being held, reportedly somewhere in Gaza.

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