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'Dear Palestinian Brothers . . . Please Return to Gaza'
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By dusk, crowds were flowing freely across the border again, and Egyptian security forces had retreated. The Egyptians stood with two dead police dogs at their feet. Witnesses said Hamas gunmen had shot them. Ambulances took away at least three wounded Egyptian officers.
Hamas security guards with guns slung over their shoulders patrolled the narrow buffer between the Egyptian wall and the Israeli-built Gaza border fence.
Hamas officials searched the heavily laden returning Palestinians at scattered checkpoints. But the breaches also appeared to provide an opportunity for gunmen to bring in materials that could be used to make weapons.
While Egyptian security forces busied themselves closing two gaps in the wall, men driving a pickup truck stacked high with metal pipes rolled through an unguarded section. Fighters in Gaza sometimes use pipes to make the crude rockets they fire into Israel.
Mubarak risks stirring up domestic dissent, particularly among Islamic groups, if he acts too roughly in returning the Palestinians to Gaza, where the Israeli restrictions remain in force.
Islamic political movements in Egypt and Jordan led mass protests Friday against the restrictions, which the Israeli government says have reduced the number of rocket attacks from Gaza.
Thousands more people demonstrated in Bahrain. King Abdullah of Jordan, which is one of only two Arab countries with full relations with Israel, has criticized the Israeli blockade, as have officials from the Arab League and the European Union.
"To be honest, what the Israelis did with blocking the borders gave a boost to Hamas," said Walid Awad, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a leader of the rival Fatah party that governs the West Bank. "It was a strategic mistake."
Knickmeyer reported from Jerusalem.
