Palestinians expect a breakthrough soon on a key sticking point in Israel’s handover of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control, Cabinet Minister Mohammed Dahlan said on Wednesday.He said the two sides were working to ensure Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt—now manned by Israel and Egypt—would be handed over to a combination of Egypt, the Palestinians and possibly a third party other than Israel. Palestinians complain that Israel will turn the teeming strip, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, into a prison.The world understands the Palestinian desire for Gaza not to become a prison, Dahlan said. “And I expect a breakthrough in this regard.” Dahlan is the Palestinian in charge of coordinating the Israeli pullout.Israeli military forces expect to be out of Gaza in mid-September, completing a withdrawal from the territory after 38 years of occupation, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said on Wednesday.Israel finished extracting 15,000 settlers and supporters from Gaza and some of the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, two weeks ahead of schedule, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan to “disengage” from conflict with Palestinians.While Israel intends to remove troops from a Gaza-Egypt border strip where it tried to stop arms-smuggling to Palestinian militants, it has not said when it will turn over Gaza’s side of the border crossings to Palestinian control.Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is due to visit Gaza early next week, most likely on Monday, to discuss the Gaza handover, a Palestinian official said. Israel and Egypt finalised a deal on Wednesday for Cairo to replace Israeli troops along its border with Gaza with 750 special police to prevent arms smuggling to Palestinian militants.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday. Abbas’s administration says it will not consider Gaza free of occupation until Israel ends all controls over travel and trade in and out of the territory. —ReutersRabbis plan museum on Gaza pulloutJERUSALEM: Rightist Israeli rabbis plan to open a Holocaust-style museum to document the evacuation of Jewish settlers and supporters from Gaza and part of the West Bank. The idea was denounced as tasteless by Israeli politicians and as ‘‘illegitimate’’ by Yad Vashem, Israel’s main Holocaust museum, which said the rabbis’ move demeaned the memory of six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany during World War II. ‘‘The repeated use of Holocaust symbols in a political struggle is outrageous and illegitimate (and risks) cheapening memory of the Holocaust,’’ the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem said. REUTERS
