Palestinian authorities are planning to keep the Gaza Strip border crossing to Egypt open for a further day, a top border official said, amid Israeli protests over the "uncontrolled" movement of Palestinians.
Palestinian Colonel Jamil Qaed said the border crossing point to Egypt would now be closed at 6pm yesterday.
He cited humanitarian grounds for the decision to keep the border crossing point open longer, saying that inhabitants in the divided town of Rafah had not been able to visit their relatives for many years.
Under the Gaza pullout agreement, the Rafah border crossing point is supposed to remain closed for six months.
Earlier yesterday, Israel Radio reported that Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has asked the Palestinian Authority to impose order in the Gaza Strip and stop the "uncontrolled" crossing of Palestinians across the border with Egypt.
The Israeli complaint comes after thousands of Palestinians have crossed back and forth over the border since the Israeli army pulled out the Gaza Strip early Monday morning.
Palestinian militants on Tuesday blew up a section of a metal wall on the border to make it easier for people to cross, witnesses said.
Palestinian gunmen cleared the area just before the blast to prevent casualties, and Palestinian police did not intervene.
Egyptian soldiers, who replaced the departed Israelis, which abuts the border with Egypt adjacent to the town of Rafah, did not interfere as Palestinian men, women and children flooded the border.
Sources in the area said the Egyptian soldiers were "turning a blind eye," as people from both sides of Rafah crossed over to greet relatives they had been unable to meet due to the division of the town.
Palestinians were also stocking up on cheap goods in Egyptian Rafah.
According to the radio report, Mofaz' military secretary told Palestinian Civil Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan that if the unsupervised border crossings did not cease, Israel would not implement several military and civilian understandings with the Palestinians.
Israel has also asked the Egyptians to honor its obligations to keep order along the border route and to speed up the deployment of Egyptian soldiers there, the radio said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will demand that all armed groups in the Gaza Strip disband immediately after Palestinian elections in January, a top aide said yesterday.
The Abbas aide, Rafiq Husseini, said the Palestinian Authority waited for the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza before implementing the plan. Israel left Gaza on Monday.
"Our plan is that until the election, the Palestinian street will be cleaned of militias and illegal weapons," he said.
Starting next week, all gunmen affiliated with the ruling Fatah movement would be absorbed into the security forces and thus be brought under control, Husseini said.
There are thousands of Fatah militiamen in Gaza, but luckily most of them are on the payroll of the Palestinian security apparatus, and that's what makes it easier to handle them," Husseini said. "We waited until the withdrawal, because it would be easier to disband Fatah militias after the Israeli withdrawal."
The final phase "will include all Palestinian factions, and it ends with the parliamentary elections, as the president will ask all factions that have seats in the legislative council to disband their military wings in the areas under Palestinian control," he said.
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