In Rafah and Nagaa Hammadi Dina Ezzat finds that steel plates and barricades can only do so much in providing long-term security Unrest is contained, but only for now, in the eastern border city of Rafah, close to 500km away from Cairo, and the Upper Egypt city of Nagaa Hammadi, approximately 700km south of Cairo heralding a tough beginning to the year. Over the weekend Rafah was the scene of considerable tension and serious unrest due to confrontations between security and solidarity convoys trying to get in and out of Gaza with tons of food and medicine for 1.5 million besieged Palestinians. Bloody confrontations also erupted across the border between Palestinians demonstrating against the Egyptian instalment of underground steel plates and censors across the borders between Egyptian territories and the Gaza Strip. Fighting left an Egyptian border guard dead and eight Palestinians wounded. Deadly Israeli raids over Gaza, next to the border with Egypt, took apprehensions even further. Over the same weekend, security forces were called on for another tough challenge in the Upper Egypt governorate of Qena in the wake of a shocking sectarian Christmas eve massacre that left six Copts killed in cold blood, along with a Muslim security guard. Coming against a backdrop of a break-up of heightened tensions over a rape incident involving a Coptic adult and a 12-year-old Muslim girl, the massacre was followed by violent Muslim- Copt confrontations that left many injured on both sides and caused widespread damage to private property -- predominantly Coptic. Today, security is on maximum alert in both Rafah and Nagaa Hammadi. Every 200 metres a security check point is monitoring the fragile truce. And in both cities the heavy presence of riot police; state security officers are far from being inconspicuous. "I was coming out of the Christmas mass last Wednesday night [6 January] with my husband. We were heading home to meet our two sons who were attending the mass at another church with a group of friends," recalls Salwa Hanna, mother of Ayman, one of the victims of the Christmas night massacre. "Then we heard people screaming and saying that someone opened random fire at people coming out of the other church." Terrified over the safety of her children Salwa called them both on their mobile phones. "There was no answer. I arrived at the church where they were praying and people told me that Ayman was hit and was taken by friends to the hospital," she told Al-Ahram Weekly in her living room packed with angry and weeping mourners dressed entirely in black. At the hospital Salwa and Zakaria, her spouse, were met by the sight of the heavily bleeding body of Ayman. They tell the Weekly while still in a state of shock over the loss of their eldest son "and the bread-winner of the family due to the declining health of the father" that medical care at the hospital was "non-existent". Salwa recalls in state of anguish how her son "was left to bleed to death". For the parents of Ayman and their compassionate friends and neighbours -- not excluding Muslims -- Ayman was the victim of a serious case of mismanagement on many a front. They blame the casualty toll of the shooting that left seven killed and some 20 people wounded on the failure of ambulances to promptly arrive on the scene of the massacre and the ineffective medical attention at the city public hospitals. "There were no doctors when the wounded were taken by friends and relatives to the hospital," Ishaq, a resident of Nagaa Hammadi, says. They also lament the failure of the executive and political bodies in Qena in overlooking the early signs of tension when they were rapidly brewing into an inevitable storm. "The governor [of Qena] turned a blind eye to the threats of some Muslims to take revenge for the rape incident," claims Hani Abdel-Rahman, a local council member in Qena. And they hold the religious leadership responsible for failing to act jointly to prevent what seemed to be an inevitable confrontation, the subsequent unrest and the continued tension. "If religious leaders on both sides act now then, maybe, and it's only a maybe, they could help contain the growing hate on both sides." But first and foremost, they blame security forces for failing to provide sufficient protection to Copts attending Christmas mass in church at a moment of clear signs of tension over the rape incident. "Security measures were not intensified. They were the same as those taken on Sunday masses, on previous Christmas eves, and on Easter masses," says Marina, a young Coptic woman as she arrives to pay condolences to the Zakaria family. However, as Mary, an elder relative of Salwa promptly adds, "they should have increased security measures since they knew about the high level of tensions." "And why did not the police arrest the alleged rapist in the first place. Why did they let him on the loose? Why didn't they punish him to spare us from this massacre?" says Zakaria as he cries over the loss of his son. The security performance was also criticised by the residents of Nagaa Hammadi, Copts and Muslims alike, for what they qualify as an "inept" security response. "It took them a long time to bring the situation under control. It's all relative but when a massacre takes place on Christmas Eve they should act faster," said Ahmed as he cycled his way home on Tuesday night through a police checkpoint. Ahmed and Mina, a Muslim and Copt from the villages of Farshout and Bahgoura, adjacent to Nagaa Hammadi, and scenes of widespread sectarian unrest, argue that security measures in the two villages should have been more competent to pre-empt the clashes. Farshout was the scene of the cross sectarian rape incident, while Bahgoura is the home village of Hamam Al-Kamouni, the prime suspect in the Nagaa Hamadi massacre. Both villages have a large Coptic population. "The following day there were heavy clashes [in both villages]," recalls Mina. And again he criticises the slow and reactive -- rather than proactive -- security performance for the widespread looting and burning that befell both villages. Ahmed seconds Mina's account. He tells the Weekly that "it was a black day for relations between Copts and Muslims after all these killings and fighting and with all this vengeance." Copts and Muslims in Nagaa Hammadi, Farshout and Bahgoura agree that the previously friendly relations that governed them would be lost for generations to come. Coptic and Muslim men and women in the three Upper Egyptian hot spots point to their children with dismay and suggest that it would be very difficult indeed for these primary school kids to forget or forgive the scene of Copts and Muslims fighting one another in broad daylight. Today, they fear that if the security presence in Qena is gradually decreased, Copts and Muslims would be fighting one another again. Indeed, some warn against ignoring the call for revenge, mostly among Copts who feel that "the government would not take the measures necessary to bring the killers of the Copts to justice." SIMILAR CONCERNS and fears were echoed in Rafah on Sunday where tension was high over Egypt's security measures across the border. "This is becoming a recurrent problem and it requires an answer once and for all," says the middle-aged lady who identifies herself as Umm Mohamed. Handing out grocery items to clients not far from the wall separating the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of the divided city of Rafah, Umm Mohamed complains about what she plainly qualifies as "an explosive situation." "This year there were the confrontations over the borders that were stopped after an Egyptian soldier was killed. A couple of years ago [January 2008] there was the breaking of the wall" by hundreds of thousands of angry Palestinians frustrated with the limited opening of the Rafah border crossing which links the Israeli besieged Gaza Strip to the Egyptian territories. "And only God knows what tomorrow would bring with the current situation," Umm Mohamed says in reference to the explicit anger of Palestinians in Gaza over the stepped up security measures on the Egyptian side to block the digging of tunnels between the Egyptian and Palestinian side of the territories to smuggle basic needs, whether food, medicine and medical equipment, or arms for resistance. Egyptian officials, especially Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit, publicly announced their determination to move ahead with the new security measures to clamp down on the digging of tunnels that is qualified by Egypt as a security hazard as they suggest that it allows for the smuggling of arms "both ways". "This is not something that Egypt can tolerate and we will proceed ahead with our measures to secure our borders," Abul-Gheit said firmly in an interview with Egyptian TV Channel Two earlier in the week. Other residents of Rafah who spoke to the Weekly do not hide their sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza who depend a great deal, according to one UNRWA official, on smuggled goods "to secure basic goods". They argue that it is "the business of the government" if it decided that it "will no longer turn a blind eye" to the digging and operation of tunnels between the two sides of Rafah. They also say it is "up to the government to do what it wants" in reference to the application of intensified security measures on the borders and the demolition of tunnels detected on the Egyptian side. Still, they believe that these security measures will not bring an end to the problem. "Why did we have the tunnels in the first place? This is the question that officials should answer if they wish to end this problem," Umm Mohamed adds. In the eyes of Rafah residents who spoke to the Weekly, the root of the problem is in the situation in Gaza. For them the facts are simple and straightforward: Israel is imposing a tight siege on the densely populated and highly impoverished Strip and is compounding this siege with heavy military operations, including the Cast Lead Operation of January last year. The world is turning its back onto them, they claim, and Egypt, it is added, is the only Arab country with borders with Gaza. "Those people there; they are suffering," says a middle-aged Egyptian-Palestinian resident of Rafah who declined to give even his first name. Referring to relatives "living on the other side of the borders," he adds that the endless suffering of Palestinians in Gaza "for decades" may not be accepted by Egyptian officials as a reason for the scenes of unrest but that this suffering "should be attended to". "Israel is again hitting. The other day we heard some very heavy shelling" by the Israeli army on the Palestinian side of the borders, he says. "And we hear on the news that there might be another operation." Israeli military and officials have publicly warned of a new round of military attacks on Gaza. Concerned Egyptian officials suggest that these operations are unlikely to "soon" evolve into a Cast Lead type of operation but they add that "nothing should be ruled out." They also acknowledge that another heavy military operation on Gaza would fuel the humanitarian crisis in the bordering Strip and pose for Egypt a huge moral and political problem similar to that of January 2008 when Egyptian authorities were criticised in human right quarters including those of the UN for keeping its borders with Gaza predominantly closed while the Strip was under siege. Today, Egyptian officials say that "the last thing" they wish to deal with is a replay of these incidents, especially in the wake of the row over the steel wall and the quarrel between Egyptian authorities and international solidarity activists bringing aid material to Gaza. This week, Abul-Gheit announced an Egyptian decision to prevent the processing of any relief convoys into Gaza through Egyptian territories in reaction to what he said was the unacceptable "violations" committed by some members of the solidarity groups accompanying these convoys. The foreign minister promised that Egypt would "make sure that Gaza will get its needs" from the Egyptian government. International activists and workers beg to differ. They claim that Egypt is not doing enough to help Gaza -- neither in terms of supplies nor in that of support. "It is not just about giving out aid but it is also about telling Palestinians under siege that the world has not forgotten their plight while Israel continues to violate their basic rights," said J'Ann Allen, an American activist. Egyptian officials insist that the motive behind this wall as behind the predominant closure of the Rafah borders is strictly an Egyptian interest -- to prevent the smuggling of arms from or into Egypt and keep tight control over the "possible infiltration" of Islamist activists from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Egypt. On Sunday in Rafah, Egyptian works were moving ahead with the construction of the underground steel wall that is fixed across most of the 14-kilometre border with Gaza. In Cairo on Monday, Egyptian officials were acknowledging Israeli news leaks about a possible reoccupation of the parallel Philadelphi corridor by the Israeli occupation army. "We could see some really difficult times. We know that," says Umm Reham, a resident of Rafah. Living in a house that is not very close to the borders, Umm Reham says that the "return of Israeli raids on Gaza is scaring" her children. "They wake up terrified to the sound of the shelling," she said. During the past couple of weeks, with the confrontations between Egyptian security and international activists on the Egyptian side of Rafah and between Egyptian security and Palestinians on the other side "and especially after the killing of the [Egyptian] soldier" Umm Reham keeps her daughter from going to school. "It was not safe," she says. "Now things seem slightly better," she adds. "Go girls, go play," says Safwan, a resident of Rafah whose house is only one kilometre away from the wall that Egypt rebuilt last year on the border after it was blown up by Gaza residents in 2008. "It is safe now. So I let them play and if the shelling or the problems start again then we will get them inside," he adds as he looks across the borders. In Nagaa Hammadi this sense of ease is still missing. "Go straight home to your parents. Do you hear me? Straight home," says Hassan, a grocer in the security controlled Upper Egyptian town. Hassan moves from behind his counter to observe eight-year-old Yasmine as she crosses the street into the opposite building after picking up yoghurt for supper. "It is not safe; not really. Problems could arise any time for no reason; tension is still high," he says as he returns to his store. "These are really tough days; really tough."
