In Arish

Well Yousuf and I have made it safely, albeit exhausted after two days of land and plane travel), as far as Al-Arish, Egypt, 50 km from the RAfah Crossing.

The Crossing is currently closed, but this time b/c of a tiff between Egyptian Authorities and the the Palestinians.

Apparently,demonstrators stormed the Egyptian embassy in Gaza city on Monday demanding that Egypt release five Palestinian men detained without charge in Cairo jails for three years now. Apparently, they were imprisoned for illegaly crossing into Egypt to seek medical treatment (it is extremely difficult for Palestinian men and boys to cross into Egypt even with a valid reason, and impossible for those without ID cards ).

Protesters then tried to block an Egyptian official's car, demanding he speak to the crowd, and chaos ensued. In a protest of its own, Egypt has shut down its side of the crossing, effectively collectively punishing the entire population of Gaza.

So again, we wait, but negotiations are under way to placate our "Egyptian friends" (seeing as how friends are in scarce supplies these days....).

I'm not sure why the protest took place Monday-perhaps it was the anniversary. Picked up the story from the street here, but have seen a few wire reports on it.

Aside from this, the UN has reported that Israel unilaterally shut down Rafah Crossing for more than 50% of the time in the month of April.