This is way off base - - but a step in the right direction...
(COMTEX) Skies open to Palestinians with first airport opening at 8:3
Skies open to Palestinians with first airport opening at 8:30 local time (0630
GMT).
DAHANIEH, Gaza Strip, Nov 23, 1998 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX) -- After
years of negotiations, fund-raising and hope, the Palestinian people
are moving one step closer to nationhood with the opening of Gaza
International Airport.
''It's a glorious feeling of independence, a feeling that we are open
to the world,'' said Fawzi Tabil, a Palestinian watching while workers
painted white lines Monday on the tarmac in the southern Gaza Strip,
close to the Egyptian border.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was expected to greet the first
arrival on Tuesday morning, a plane carrying government officials from
Cairo.
At half-hour intervals, six more festive flights were to arrive from
places including Morocco and Spain. The European Union, which donated
dlrs 38 million for equipment and training, is sending its Mideast
envoy in a special plane.
Palestine Airlines, with a small fleet that includes one Boeing 727,
will begin direct flights to Jordan, Egypt and Morocco next week. Civil
aviation contracts with other carriers are in the works and expanded
service plans include weekly flights to Cyprus and Japan.
On Wednesday, Arafat will fly on his presidential plane for the first
time out of his homeland to Paris to meet with French President Jacques
Chirac. Until now, Arafat has had drive to Egypt, where his plane was
kept, and fly on from there.
The airport opening had been held up for two years because of disputes
between Israel and Arafat's autonomous government over Israel's
security role.
Israel will have a say over who and what enters Gaza, but the Israeli
monitors will operate discretely, behind one-way mirrors, as they do
now at two other crossings into autonomous Palestinian areas. Israel
will not interfere with departures from the airport.
The airport protocol was signed last week, as part of the Wye River
peace deal signed last month by Israel and the Palestinians.
Only hours before the first flights were to arrive, the control tower
was still without controls, the check-in counter had no computers and
the runway was missing flood lights for night landings.
Palestinian officials said most for the equipment was being held up at
the Israeli shipping port of Ashdod. The opening of their own seaport
is next on the Palestinian wish list and was promised under the Wye
agreement.
Other gear such as X-ray machines and electro-magnetic equipment were
being inspected for safety standards by Israel, said Tomer Degani, a
spokesman for the Israeli military government in Gaza.
Portable control equipment in a van was to guide Tuesday's flights to a
safe landing. The passengers were to be checked in at the Rafah border
crossing, a 10-minute bus ride away. Until the floodlights arrive,
there will be no night flights.
Despite its shortcomings, many Palestinians consider the airport a big
step toward independence. For those living in the small, overcrowded
Gaza Strip, which is ringed by the Mediterranean on one side and by
barbed wire on the other three, it may help ease the ever-present
feeling of being trapped.
In the past, Palestinians wanting to fly abroad needed permission to
enter Israel and fly out of the international airport near Tel Aviv.
Israel rarely granted permission, however, forcing Palestinians to
travel through Israeli-controlled land routes to Egypt or Jordan to
catch flights.
''Now we will be able to travel without the Israeli procedures that we
usually must go through,'' said Khaled Salmeh, adding that he plans to
fly next month to Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam's
holiest site.
West Bank Palestinians, separated from Gaza by Israel, will still need
Israeli permission to travel to the Gaza airport.
Designed in an Oriental style with elaborate tiles imported from
Morocco, the airport has one passenger terminal, a VIP lounge and a
three-kilometer (two-mile)-long runway. A 1-meter (4-foot)-tall poster
of Arafat hangs from the control tower wall.
For the time being, Israelis will not be permitted to use the airport
because of security concerns. However, many believe Gaza International
will eventually rival Ben Gurion International
Airport near Tel Aviv.
Copyright 1998 Associated Press, All rights reserved.
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By MARK LAVIE
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