Feature: Palestinian troops deployed borderline with Egypt to stop smuggling chaos

Four contingents of Palestinian national security forces comprising some 300 troops were deployed along the borderline with Egypt on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Interior.

The forces sealed off five major breaches along Gaza's southern border to stop the flock of Palestinians in and out of Egypt after the Israeli army withdrew from the Gaza Strip on Monday.

Thousands of people have crossed freely between Gaza and Egypt to go for shopping or see long-lost relatives, while many of them used the scarce opportunity to make money from smuggling cheap goods even weapons as they broke through the border formerly patrolled by Israel but now under the Egyptian control.

Osama Ahmed, 26, is the one. He took advantage of loose control on the Gaza-Egypt border to make money from smuggling liquor to Gaza regardless of Islamic traditional ban.

"When I was at the Egyptian side, I saw thousands of people buying cigarettes and food, and when I asked about the prices, I found there isn't much profit, then I suddenly thought about liquor and beer," said Ahmed.

He bought two boxes of beer and two boxes of Whisky, and returned to Gaza.

Each box of beer cost is 150 Egyptian pounds (about 30 US dollars) and I immediately sold each box for 60 dollars, said Ahmed, adding that a Whisky bottle cost in Egypt is 95 Egyptian pounds (about 20 dollars), but in Gaza it was sold for 50 dollars.

It's a conservative society in Gaza and other Palestinian lands and people can't serve liquor or beer in hotels and restaurants, though the alcoholic products are being drunk at home or with friends in closed areas.

The smugglers disregarded this fact and brought big amounts of liquors in Gaza as no restrictions were on the borders between Gaza and Egypt for several days.

It was a great chance, a good business and nice to have liquor again in Gaza after it was banned for years, said Ahmed.

On Monday morning, the last Israeli soldier left the Gaza Strip,including what is called the Philadelphi route, or the 12-kilometer borderline with Egypt.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crossed the borderline through holes they made into the 6-meter height concrete wall into Egypt. Many of them have used the rare historic chance for business.

Young men, women and children were seen climbing another 2-meter fence at Egypt's side of the route, and then coming back carrying anything comes in mind that money could be made out of it.

It is a fact that prices in Egypt are much lower than in the Gaza Strip. Illegal businessmen and smugglers were taking money with them, buying staff according to the price in Egypt and selling them in Gaza with a double price.

Cigarettes, cheese, oil, gas, liquors, beers, drugs, bullets, pistols, Klashnikov rifles, hunting rifles, drugs, even goats and sheep were all bought by Palestinians in Egypt and sold in the Gaza Strip for higher prices, said witnesses.

One of the smugglers, who managed to bring four pistols and three hunting rifles and spoke in condition of anonymity, said that a pistol in Egypt cost 600 dollars and he sold it in Gaza for 1300 dollars.

He said that before the Israeli army withdrew from the Gaza Strip, a gunshot for a pistol cost 4 dollars and now the bullet's price went down to one dollar.

The Israeli government doesn't care much about smuggling any kind of food or liquor, but does care a lot about weapons, since it might be used in the future by militants and threaten the security of Israel.

Palestinian Minister of Interior Nasser Yousef admitted that limited amounts of weapons had been smuggled into the Gaza Strip, adding that the Palestinian security forces know exactly who brought these weapons in and who bought them.

During his another visit to Rafah crossing and the borderline with Egypt in less than three days, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas promised on Friday that chaos on the borderline will be completely over within the coming two days.

Source:Xinhua