That means that almost half the population of the 1.5 million people who live in the constricted Gaza Strip descended on the Egyptian area around the town of El-Arish like a human tsunami, buying everything in sight.

Reports from Gaza and the southern town of Rafah indicate the exodus of Gazans was spontaneous, brought about as a result of the blockade imposed by Israel on the Palestinians in the Strip. The blockade on Gaza by Israel was in retaliation to the firing by Hamas gunmen of Qassam rockets on Israeli cities and towns near Gaza.

But just how spontaneous was the Palestinian surge? Was it truly an unplanned occurrence, a knee-jerk reaction of a people going hungry? Possibly.

But what if all this was not spontaneous? What if the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who took part in the two-day shopping spree in Egypt were egged on and encouraged by members of Hamas, who saw a unique opportunity to demonstrate to Israel that its policy of blockading Gaza simply would not work?

And even if the scheme were not initially thought up by Hamas, the fact is that the Islamic Resistance Movement was quick enough to recognize an opportunity and wasted no time turning a delicate situation to their favor.

Why was last week's Palestinian exodus not spontaneous? Among the reasons is the fact that explosives had to be used to create the 15 breaches in the security barrier. People in search of food don't typically carry explosives around, even in Gaza. The concertina wire needed to be flattened and removed with the help of a bulldozer. Someone had two make sure there would be one on hand.

And finally, someone, or rather some people with a good sense of organization, had to spread the word around the entire Strip of what was transpiring on the border in Rafah, some 20 miles from Gaza City.

Spontaneous? A spur-of-the-moment affair? Hardly.

The organizers, or perhaps we should call them the inciters of this reverse exodus into Egypt, had a pretty good notion that Egyptian troops guarding the Rafah border crossing would not fire on fellow Arabs and Muslims. Had they done so, had Egyptian security forces opened fire and killed dozens of hungry Palestinians, there would have been massive riots in Cairo and other Arab cities.

There are two ways of looking at what happened in Gaza. First, is that the exodus into Egypt was planned by Hamas as a means of breaking the embargo on Gaza. Or, perhaps Hamas jumped on the bandwagon once they realized they could get some political mileage from rapidly developing events. Either way, it shows that Hamas has the ability to adapt to an evolving situation; and to organize a massive movement of people in Gaza, an area they now fully control.

The real danger, however, lies in the weeks ahead. Having seen how successful last week's operation turned out, the planners could decide to repeat it, only this time targeting a different crossing point; this time the target is a crossing point leading to Israel rather than Egypt.

The outcome of such a scenario is frightening.

Imagine that two or three weeks from now, once the food and cigarettes and other goods purchased in Egypt have started to run out again. Hamas begins to incite the crowds to carry out a repeat performance. Only this time they funnel the march north instead of south. An equal number of Gazans -- 700,000 -- are once again mobilized.

And even if only 50,000 people show up, Hamas is well aware that the reception reserved to hordes of Palestinians charging toward the Israeli frontier will no doubt be perceived by Israeli security as nothing less than an invasion of Israeli territory. Hamas knows that the reaction of Israeli border guards is bound to be drastically different than the one received in Egypt. In fact, they are banking on that.

What happens next will send shock waves throughout the Greater Middle East and the Muslim world. From Casablanca to Rawalpindi millions of people will take the street in protest, plunging the Middle East into its worst crisis in modern history.

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(Claude Salhani is editor of the Middle East Times.)