SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — After three years of cooperating in the Israeli blockade of Gaza, Egypt said Monday it will leave its border with the Palestinian territory open indefinitely for humanitarian aid and restricted travel.
With international pressure building to ease the blockade, an Egyptian security official said sealing off Hamas-ruled Gaza has only bred more militancy.
The decision to ease the restrictions erected by Israel to isolate and punish Hamas comes a week after a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade.
The move restores a link to the outside world for at least some of Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians.
It also appeared calculated to defuse anger in the Arab and Muslim world over Egypt’s role in maintaining the blockade and to show that Egypt, too, is now pressing Israel to open at least its land crossings with Gaza.
“Egypt is the one that broke the blockade,” Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said. “We are not going to let the occupying power escape from its responsibilities.”
Israel has not publicly protested the Egyptian move, but officials declined to comment Monday.
The U.S., which has called the current border restrictions unsustainable, is among those pressing for changes. Vice President Joe Biden met Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
He released a statement afterward saying the U.S. is closely consulting with Egypt and other allies to find new ways to “address the humanitarian, economic, security, and political aspects of the situation in Gaza.”
In another escalation of the tension off Gaza’s shores, Israeli naval forces shot and killed four men wearing wet suits off the coast Monday. The militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades said the men were members of its marine unit training for a mission.
Egypt was not exactly a reluctant participant in imposing the blockade. Like Israel, Egypt watched with concern as Hamas militants wrenched control of Gaza from their rivals in the Fatah movement of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas during bloody street battles in 2007.
Egypt, which had its own war against Islamic radicals in the 1990s, fears sharing a border with a territory controlled by Islamic militants who have the backing of rising regional rival Iran.
Egypt paid a price for its part in the blockade, including protests at home against the government of Mubarak, who has been accused of being “an agent” for Israel. And in January 2008, Hamas militants blew up a section of the Gaza-Egypt border wall in an attempt to end the blockade, allowing hundreds of thousands of Gazans to pour into Egypt. It took 12 days for Egyptian forces to restore order and close the border.
The May 31 flotilla raid, in which eight Turkish men and one dual American-Turkish citizen were killed, also seriously hurt Israel’s relations with Turkey, which had been its closest ally in the Muslim world.
In announcing the change in Egypt’s position, a security official acknowledged his country was in a “continuously critical situation,” and he said Israel was wrong to think the closure could pressure Hamas to meet a series of demands, including the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, who has been held since 2006.
“Israel still insists that the blockade is a pressure tool. It can release Schalit and force Hamas to stop resistance. … On the contrary, it becomes more extremist,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
