Rafah

    A crush of 4-5,000 Palestinians trying to get through the newly opened Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip into Egypt Thursday left an seven people wounded, Palestinian medics said.A 61-year-old man on his way to a medical checkup in Egypt also died of a heart attack outside the crossing, but the circumstances of his death were not immediately clear, media reported. Jose Vericat, a spokesman for the European Union observers in charge of the crossing, said officials temporarily closed the terminal after the crush. "It was impossible for the Palestinian security personnel to keep control," Vericat said.According to the EU observers, the Rafah crossing has only been open less than a fifth of the time since June 2006, when Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid, sparking an Israeli offensive in Gaza. The fact that the crossing is usually closed leads to massive crowds on the rare occasions it opens. Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005. The Rafah crossing is essentially the only way out of the crowded coastal strip for its 1.4 million residents, media reported.(20,00)