Egypt thwarts Israel’s efforts to starve their Palestinian captives in Gaza. Masked gunmen in Palestine were responsible for tearing down part of the metal barrier separating Egypt from Gaza in the town of Rafah, but now Egyptian leader Mubarak has announced his intention to allow residents of Gaza to resupply themselves in Egypt with the food and necessities being deprived them by the Israeli blockade.

“Masked gunmen?” That certainly paints the usual negative picture. Is it fair to label either Hamas or Fatah as [lawless] gunslingers? All warring participants in Palestine and Iraq are masked. Israeli soldiers, Iraqi trainees collaborating with the Americans, even many of the Americans have their faces concealed. Needless to say every combatant is armed with guns. How descriptive is it then to identify Palestinian upstarts in such terms? The Palestinians who dared break down the barrier in Gaza have to obscure their identities to prevent subsequent retaliatory Israeli air-strikes on their particular homes and families. They do it also to avoid arrest and indefinite incarceration in Israeli prisons. Even boys conceal their faces with scarves or kaffiyeh when they throw stones at the Israeli tanks.

If the armed Palestinians had fired on Egyptian border guards, perhaps there might have been cause to call them gunmen. Otherwise the description seems just as biased as another side saying Palestinian saboteurs interrupt Israel’s smooth running genocidal solution in Gaza.