Palestinians in Gaza to have access to 'easy' travel to Cairo soon: sources

Palestinian sources based in the besieged Gaza Strip said on Tuesday that the local residents are expected to have improvements to their trips to Cairo soon. 

"The Egyptian authorities adopted new measures to improve the conditions of Gazan travellers while moving from Gaza to Cairo," the sources said to The New Arab.

The source, close to the Gaza-run Islamic Hamas movement and requested to remain anonymous, said that Egypt decided to remove all barriers from Gaza to Cairo, beginning of next November, and will end checkpoints that hinder the movement of travellers and cause massive delays.  

The source stressed that the coordination mechanism for travel, especially for young people under the age of 45, which involved the Egyptian authorities receiving exorbitant money in exchange for allowing travel, will cease soon. 

The Rafah crossing is the only exit to the outside world for the residents of the Gaza Strip,  home to more than two million people. Many residents live in harsh humanitarian conditions as a result of the closure of the crossings by Egypt and Israel.

A high number of Gazans, mainly under the age of 45 years, are forced to pay bribes, amounting from $US 300 to $US 1,500, to Egyptian officers to allow passage through the crossing.

Adding to the harsh conditions are dozens of Egyptian checkpoints that hold up Palestinian travellers for long hours as they wait their turn to be inspected, without access to bathrooms, food, drink, or a place to rest.

The "ferryboat checkpoint" is considered one of the most ever difficult stops in the journey between Gaza and Cairo. 

In a bid to ease the procedures, Egyptian-Palestinian companies will be responsible for accelerating and facilitating the movement of travellers from Gaza to Cairo and back, according to the source.

So far, the Hamas-run local authorities have no official comment on the issue. 

Meanwhile, Gazan travellers have confirmed that travel procedures have become easier compared to previous months.

Amna Al-Mudallal, a resident of the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, expressed happiness as she did not face any difficulty during her travels to Cairo.

"In the past,  we used to face mistreatment by Egyptian officers and long waits on the road under the pretext of inspection, which took the character of a personal insult to us," she said to The New Arab. 

"It [the road to Egypt] seemed completely different this time, especially since the majority of Egyptian officers treated us kindly and we did not wait long," she said, adding that it only took 10 hours to reach Cairo.

For his part, a source close to the Palestinian Authority attributed the expected "radical changes" in Gaza's travel procedures to political and economic factors that the Egyptian authorities are seeking to achieve soon.

The source, who preferred to remain unnamed, said to The New Arab "there are many consultations between the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Hamas regarding the implementation of the Gaza gas agreement and benefiting from it in the coming years."

"Even if Egypt signed clear agreements with the Palestinian Authority regarding Gaza gas, it will not be able to implement its plans if Hamas does not agree," he added. 

Therefore, the source explains, Egypt is seeking to improve the conditions of Gazans economically, politically and socially, and one of the most difficult issues that the local population suffers from is travelling through the Rafah crossing.

Egypt wants to achieve a major victory with regard to "the calm" between Hamas and Israel and on the issue of internal reconciliation between Hamas and the PA, according to the source.