Sit-in at Rafah crossing for not allowing Egyptian convoy into Gaza

Egyptian lawmakers who organized an aid convoy to the Gaza Strip said Monday they staged an open sit-in at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing after their aid trucks were impounded by the security authorities there. According to Ikhwan online website, MP Mohamed Al-Beltaji stated that the sit-in will continue to take place until the security authorities release the trucks and allow the lawmakers into Gaza to deliver the aid themselves. Beltaji noted that the lawmakers received the approval of Egyptian speaker of the parliament Dr. Ahmed Sorour, but the security officer in charge refused that saying he did not get orders from his superiors to allow them to pass into Gaza. He added that Sorour and the manager of the crossing promised him to make the necessary contacts to clarify matters during the next few hours. The convoy, which is called Freedom and composed of four aid trucks loaded with building materials, was seized on Monday by the director of security in north Sinai. MP Hazem Farouk, the head of the Egyptian delegation participating in the convoy, spoke by phone with the reporter of the Palestinian information center and told him that the security officials confiscated the drivers’ licenses and threatened them with arrest before seizing the trucks. The Hamas change and reform parliamentary bloc, for its part, strongly denounced the Egyptian security authorities for not allowing in the aid convoy and called on the Egyptian leadership to create a real and lasting solution to the Rafah crossing and open it permanently. For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), appealed to the Egyptian authorities to facilitate the entry of the Egyptian parliamentary delegation and their convoy to Gaza in compliance with what he called the brave decision taken by president Hosni Bubarak to open the Rafah crossing before humanitarian aid. In another context, Dr. Bahar called in a special session for the PLC on Monday, on the Arab parliaments and the Arab League to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli decision to exile Palestinian lawmakers from the occupied city of Jerusalem. He noted that Israel has flouted the resolution number 478 issued by the UN in 1980 and now it is working on emptying Jerusalem of its indigenous people.