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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, May 17, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 3088 ~ 23 of 55
number of wounded has overwhelmed the Gaza health system.
El-Sissi said in televised comments earlier this week that Egypt has been communicating with Israel and
the Palestinians in an effort “to stop the bloodshed.” He urged Israel to “understand that the Palestinian reactions are legitimate and they should handle it very carefully.”
In 2007, Hamas wrested control of Gaza by force, provoking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade that severely restricted the movement of most of Gaza’s 2 million inhabitants.
The Rafah crossing is Gaza’s main gate to the outside world but has only had sporadic openings since the 2013 ouster of Egypt’s elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, a high-ranking member of Hamas’ parent group, The Muslim Brotherhood. While Egypt has been struggling with Islamic insurgency for decades, militant attacks increased after Morsi’s ouster, giving Egyptian authorities more justification to tighten movement to and from Gaza.
Over the years, Egypt has opened the crossing for a few days every two to three months. The an- nouncement doesn’t change much in the daily flow of people, an official at the crossing said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press.
Traveling has mostly been restricted to humanitarian cases, with priority given to medical patients, stu- dents admitted to outside universities and Palestinians with residency permits in third countries about to expire. Palestinian-Egyptians and dual-nationals are also eligible to apply.
El-Sissi’s announcement is not expected to ease the lengthy, complicated security procedures that turn Palestinians’ trip to the Rafah crossing into a hardship. Egypt’s security and intelligence services haves lists of Palestinians allegedly involved in the Islamic insurgency and anti-government attacks during the 2011 uprising that forced longtime President Hosni Mubarak to step down.
Under the banner of combating terrorism, Egypt began razing the town of Rafah in 2014 and demol- ished most of the residential buildings nearby except for the southern section to curb underground tunnel smuggling of fighters and weapons. Tens of thousands of Rafah residents have been evacuated. Egypt blamed Hamas for smuggling fighters and weapons into Egypt from Gaza through underground tunnels.
The measures were meant to create a buffer zone as part of Egypt’s efforts to purge northeastern Sinai of Islamic militants following the 2014 Islamic State group bombings that left dozens of soldiers dead. So far, Egypt has created a 5-kilometer (3 mile) buffer zone and is in a process of expanding it to 7 kilometers (4.3 miles).
Besides the buffer zone, Egypt has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew across north- eastern Sinai including Rafah, which means travelers arriving after 7 p.m. at the crossing have to wait until 6 a.m. the next morning to leave.
The Egyptian army continues to fight Islamic insurgents in northern Sinai.
__ Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report. Akram contributed from Gaza.
CIA gets first female chief with confirmation of Gina Haspel By DEB RIECHMANN and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Veteran spy Gina Haspel will become the first female director of the CIA after six Democrats joined Republicans in a Senate confirmation vote that overrode concerns about her role in the spy agency’s harsh interrogation program after 9/11.
Thursday’s 54-45 vote split both parties, and the margin was the closest for a CIA nominee in the nearly seven decades that a nod from the Senate has been required. Haspel, who has spent nearly all of her 33-year CIA career in undercover positions, is the first career operations officer to be confirmed since William Colby in 1973.
Haspel, 61, is a native of Kentucky but grew up around the world as the daughter of an Air Force service- man. She worked in Africa, Europe and classified locations around the globe and was tapped as deputy director of the CIA last year. She worked under former CIA director Mike Pompeo until President Donald Trump moved him to secretary of state.
Haspel was backed by many in the CIA rank-and-file and was robustly supported by senior intelligence