Such joy brings a tear to my eye :teary1:
One land, one people, divided by a wall built by Zionists and now that wall torn down by Palestinians for a reunification 
RAFAH, EGYPT – In scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of jubilant Palestinians in the south of the Gaza Strip tore down sections of a metal barrier and streamed south across the border into Egypt yesterday, reuniting with relatives they hadn’t seen in years.
The southern town of Rafah, divided in two under a 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, was again one yesterday, and Palestinians poured en masse across the border to sightsee, shop and hold picnics with friends and family.
Men in army fatigues, women in flowing black abayas and children skipping school stepped over the rubble of homes demolished by the Israeli army last year and followed the bulldozer tracks toward a series of holes that had been ripped in the metal border fence. By some estimates, 20,000 people crossed yesterday, almost all of them heading into Egypt from Gaza.
“We’re going to al-Arish!” shouted Samira Awrabi, a 50-year-old hairdresser, as she excitedly marched with her daughters toward a town about 30 kilometres away in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.
“I don’t know anything about al-Arish, I’ve never been there, but we’ve been locked up for so long and this is our chance to get out and see the world,” Ms. Awrabi said.
A large section of the barrier was actually torn down on Monday, hours after the Israeli military completed its formal withdrawal from the Gaza Strip after an often-brutal 38-year occupation.
But after one Palestinian was killed – allegedly by fire from Egyptian border guards – few others dared make the crossing.
Yesterday, the Egyptian border guards were gone and so was the fear. Using hammers, Palestinians opened several other holes in the 10-metre metal fence that marked the southern edge of Gaza. People poured through in both directions, and a lively trade in cigarettes, food, compact discs and live chickens soon flourished across the previously closed border.
On the other side of the no man’s land between the two sides, a young Palestinian boy erected a ladder to help women and the elderly over a smaller concrete wall that marked the Egyptian border. He charged one shekel a crossing and likely made a fortune.
“I’m so happy, I’m going to die. I haven’t left Rafah in 10 years,” said Khatim Abu Riash as he stepped into Egypt in the company of his twin sister and her eight children. The 38-year-old said he was a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Palestinian militant group that waged bloody war against the Israelis during the recent intifada, or uprising.
Mr. Abu Riash and his relatives were all carrying massive suitcases, suggesting they weren’t planning to come back to Gaza any time soon. Though he said he planned to return today after spending the night with relatives on the Egyptian side, others were less certain of when they might return to impoverished Rafah, which was the scene of some of the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in recent years. Some shouted that they were heading as far away as Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
“I’m going to al-Arish, and after that, maybe all the way to Cairo. Why not? My aunt lives there,” said a 33-year-old who gave his name as Abu Hassan and whose travelling companion was also carrying a large suitcase.
The two men wedged themselves through a thin opening in the rusted metal fence that long formed the northern edge of the Philadelphi Corridor – a narrow strip of land between Egypt and Gaza that the Israeli army had patrolled until Saturday, when it handed over formal control to the Egyptians.
Under an agreement with Israel, 750 lightly armed Egyptian soldiers are to patrol the border. While an initial 200 were reportedly deployed last week, none were in sight yesterday. Palestinians phoning home said they got as far as al-Arish, but there were roadblocks after that preventing them from continuing on to Cairo.
A lone Palestinian soldier wandering in the Philadelphi Corridor said no one had the heart to stop people from reuniting with their families on the Egyptian side after so long apart.
“These people have lived through many years of frustration, as if they were in prison,” he said as he watched crowds continue to surge into Egypt. “People want their freedom and we’re not going to deny them this, but freedom has its limitations.”
Palestinian officials said free crossings would be allowed until tonight, after which they and the Egyptians would try and retake control of the border. The Israeli government said it was concerned about the situation and said it highlighted the need for third-party monitoring of the Gaza-Egypt border.
“The great danger is that both people and arms could be smuggled under the unwatchful eyes of the Egyptians,” said Zalman Shoval, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Before withdrawing, the Israeli government announced it was closing the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt for six months while the border terminal was renovated. It has also said that it intends to maintain control over Gaza’s airspace and sea border.
Yesterday, even before the mass storming of the border, Diana Buttu, a legal adviser to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, warned in an interview that Palestinians would not tolerate a system that saw an end to the military occupation but left the Israelis in control of who came and went from Gaza. She predicted the very sort of scenes that unfolded a few hours later.
