Mona, a university student in the Gaza Strip, went into rapture after the announcement of a Palestinian-Israeli agreement on Gaza border crossings, but later she turned worried that free movement and family reunions might only be an illusion.

"My mother, sisters, brothers and I live in the Gaza Strip, while my father and all the other relatives live in (the West Bank city of) Ramallah. We hope we can go to Ramallah and live with my dad," Mona said.

"But I fear the agreement would never be translated into reality," she added after a moment of second thought.

The US-brokered deal was announced earlier on Tuesday, which says that the key Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border will be re-opened as of Nov. 25, a seaport can be constructed in Gaza and that Palestinians can travel between Gaza and the West Bank in bus and truck convoys within months.

However, Gazans, who had been living in a desert coastal strip sealed under Israeli occupation for 38 years, were cautious in welcoming the deal, fearing it might be only too good to be true.

Om Muhammad, an Egyptian woman married to a Palestinian, said she hoped this time the Rafah crossing would be opened without being shut down again.

"We have been married for 22 years and I came to the Gaza Strip from Egypt. None of my family has ever visited me during the past over two decades, for they were always afraid of being stranded in Gaza once the crossing was closed," she complained.

"I hope the agreement can be carried out on the ground instead of just being another piece of paper," she said, expecting reunion with her family in Gaza.

The Rafah crossing is the only exit for Palestinians living in Gaza to travel abroad. The terminal has remained closed since Israel withdrew from the entire strip in September.

Under the deal, the crossing will be re-opened later this month with the presence of European Union security monitors. All Palestinian identification card holders can travel through the crossing in both directions.

However, a Taxi driver from the Gaza city called Abu al-Abed voiced pessimism on the fate of the agreement.

"Let me be frank, I don't believe the politicians' statements," he said.

"I used to carry people in my taxi between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but I have lost the well-paid job ever since the Intifada (Uprising) broke out in September 2000 as my taxi was forbidden to travel out of Gaza," he said.

"I don't believe that the Israelis will be honest in implementing the agreement," he added.

Fearing that the Rafah crossing might be used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons, Israel had insisted on monitoring goods and people through the terminal, but Palestinians asserted that no Israelis should be at Rafah.

The two sides finally reached a compromise that Israeli and Palestinian security officers will co-monitor the traffic at Rafah by remote-control cameras in a control room a few kilometers away from the crossing.

Meanwhile, the Karni crossing on the eastern Gaza border with Israel will be expanded to allow 150 trucks to pass through per day by the end of this year. Only 35 commercial trucks carrying Gaza goods were previously permitted to enter Israel via Karni daily. The number of trucks will be lifted to 400 per day by the end of 2006.

But the agreement did not touch the issue of re-opening the Gaza airport which was shut down at the beginning of the Intifada.

Source: Xinhua