CAIRO - Israel is angry that the Rafah border crossing with Gaza is going to be opened, Al-Youm Al-Sabe reports on Saturday.Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi said on Friday that Egypt will permanently open the Rafah border crossing to ease the blockade on Gaza.
Al-Arabi told Al-Jazeera that Egypt will take "important steps to help ease the blockade of Gaza in the next few days," according to the Arabic-language satellite channel.
He said Egypt will no longer accept that the Rafah border Gaza's only crossing that bypasses Israel remain blocked, describing the decision to seal it off as "shameful."
The announcement came days after Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers and their secular West Bank rivals Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, agreed to end their rift and form an interim government to prepare for elections.
Lieutenant-General Sami Annan, a senior Egyptian Army officer and a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has said that Israel doesn't have the right to interfere in any decision about opening the border, because it is an internal affair.
