GAZA BORDER UPDATE JANUARY 30

UNCLAS CAIRO 000163 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL KPAL CASC PTER EG IS SUBJECT: GAZA BORDER UPDATE JANUARY 30 REF: A) CAIRO 155, B) CAIRO 148 ¶1. An Egyptian businessman in El Arish told us January 30 that he was not optimistic that the GOE will successfully round up all the Palestinians in North Sinai. Some of them, he surmised, will go to ground with friends and relatives. An academic contact, by contrast, said that Egyptians in North Sinai were happy to open their homes to Palestinians. He said he went to the border after the breach to see what was going on, and gave a ride back to El Arish to a Palestinian mother and her grown son who came over to shop. He ended up putting them up for the night; they shopped, then went back to Gaza. "I was glad to help." Like many others in El Arish, he has family ties spanning the border. His wife's family home is in Rafah a hundred yards from the border, and her extended family is evenly divided by the border. His brother is married to a Palestinian. Like almost everyone in El Arish, he said he hopes for regular, controlled border openings at Rafah as soon as possible. ¶2. A senior MoD contact told us January 30 the situation at the Rafah border was "quiet." He said the MoD had sent a team of engineers to assess damage to the border on the Egyptian side, including lights that had been knocked out by rocks thrown by Palestinians. He said the team would assess not only damage, but also how many bricks and how much cement will be needed to build a new wall on the Egyptian side of the border "between border stone two and border stone five." (Note: Unlike the Gazan side of the border which had been protected by a steel wall until Hamas destroyed much of it on January 22, the Egyptian side is demarcated by little more than barbed wire. End note.) The MoD contact added that the GoE was deliberately preventing the delivery of food and other basic commodities to El Arish and Rafah. "We know the people of El Arish and Rafah are suffering," he said, "but it is the only way to prevent the Palestinians from staying." JONES