GAZA, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- The Rafah border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened Saturday for the first time since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in September.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said in an opening ceremony that "our dream has come true as we stand celebrating the opening of the border that will be a free passage between us and our brothers in Egypt."
Addressing the residents of Gaza, Abbas told them "you will no longer wait in long lines and no longer be humiliated from now on."
The Palestinian leader later submitted his passport to the border employees to be the first to cross into Egypt, the only passage for Gazans to the outside world.
The reopening of the Rafah border will end the isolation of more than one million Palestinians in Gaza.
The border crossing was closed on Sept. 7, five days before the Israeli forces withdrew from the area that they had controlled during 38 years of occupation.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this month mediated an agreement that allowed the reopening of the Rafah border under European supervision.
The border will be open only to Palestinians, diplomats and international aid workers for four hours a day until the remainder of the 70 European monitors arrive in the area.
A joint Palestinian-Israeli office is monitoring the movement on the borders via installed video cameras.
Hundreds of Palestinians Saturday crossed the border crossing into Gaza for the first time without Israeli security measures.
Palestinian National Economy Minister Mazen Sunnuqrut said the opening of the Rafah border "has given added political, economic and social value to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza."
He said in a statement to the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, the supervision of European monitors was a "unique test of international border management."
