Contributed by Lucia in Spain
"RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured from the Gaza Strip into Egypt Wednesday after masked gunmen with explosives destroyed most of the seven-mile wall dividing the border town of Rafah.
Gazans crossed on foot, in cars or in donkey carts to buy cigarettes, fuel, and other items made scarce by an Israeli blockade of their impoverished territory. Across the coastal strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, people pushed into buses and piled into rickety pickup trucks heading to Egypt and a rare opportunity to escape months of isolation.
Police from the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, directed the traffic. Egyptian border guards took no action.
"Freedom is good. We need no border after today," said unemployed 29-year-old Mohammed Abu Ghazal.
Hamas did not take responsibility for knocking down the border wall erected by Israel as fighting intensified with militants after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. But it seemed unlikely the move could have been undertaken without Hamas' approval.
The group's supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, said from Damascus, Syria that Hamas was willing to work out a new border arrangement with Egypt and Hamas' rival, moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that he had ordered his troops to allow the Palestinians to cross into Egypt from the Gaza Strip because they were starving [you just noticed that, Pharaoh?]......"
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