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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip-Israel wants to abandon all responsibility for the Gaza Strip, including the supply of electricity and water, now that the territory's southern border with Egypt has been blasted open, Israel's deputy defense minister said Thursday.It was not immediately clear whether the minister, Matan Vilnai, was expressing the view of the Israeli government, or was testing international receptiveness to such idea.As tens of thousands of Palestinians clamber back and forth between the Gaza strip and Egypt, details have emerged of the audacious operation that brought down the hated border wall and handed the Islamist group Hamas what might be its greatest propaganda coup, the London Times reported Thursday.[[[Hamas, which took control of the coastal territory last June after a stand-off with Fatah, has denied that its men set off the explosions that brought down as much as two-thirds of the 12-km wall in the early hours.(of course....)But a Hamas border guard interviewed by The London Times at the border admitted that the Islamist group was responsible and had been involved for months in slicing through the heavy metal wall using oxy-acetylene cutting torches.]]]That meant that when the explosive charges were set off in 17 different locations between midnight and 1am the 40ft wall came tumbling down, leaving it lying like a broken concertina down the middle of no-man's land as an estimated 350,000 Gazans flooded into Egypt.[[[The guard, Lieutenant Abu Usama of the Palestinian National Security, said of the cutting operation: "I've seen this happening over the last few months. It happened in the daytime but was covered up so that nobody would see."Asked whether he had reported it to the government, he replied: "It was the government that was doing this. Who would I report it to?"Abu Usama, who normally works from a small guard cabin in no-man's land, added: "Last night we were told to keep away from the wall. We were ordered to stay away because they were going to break the blockade."]]]As Gazans flooded into Egypt, the strip's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, called for an urgent meeting with his rivals in Fatah and with the Egyptian authorities to work a new border arrangement....To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
