Palestinians formally opened a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt today that will allow Gazans to travel abroad freely for the first time since Israel occupied the coastal territory in 1967.
"I think every Palestinian now has his passport ready in his pocket. Let them come to cross at this terminal whenever they want," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Abbas cut the ribbon to open the terminal under a banner describing it as Palestinians' "crossing to freedom" to loud cheers from hundreds of onlookers.
He later became the first person to have his passport symbolically stamped there. Cross-border movement at the terminal will be supervised by European Union monitors as part of a US-brokered deal after Israel completed its Gaza pullout in September.
The first travellers will be able to begin using the terminal at noon local time tomorrow. Israel, citing security concerns, will keep on eye on traffic through a video link set up as part of the agreement.
The Rafah deployment marks the EU's first monitoring role in the Palestinian territories. "We want to ... transform your borders into bridges with your neighbours and with Israel. Israel is also your neighbour," EU Middle East envoy Mark Otte said at the ceremony.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, a leader of the militant Hamas group, attended the event, although he said Hamas had reservations about the Rafah agreement. Hamas is running for the first time in a Palestinian parliamentary election, slated for January.
The border crossing deal was seen as a sign of improved Israel-EU relations. But an Israeli official indicated that ties might cool if the European Union went ahead and endorsed a draft report critical of Israeli policy in Arab East Jerusalem.
"It would surely be a pity if this positive momentum would stop and we would see a regression to the one-sided (European) position of the past," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
The draft report by EU diplomats in East Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah to the 25-member group's foreign ministers was leaked to the media and recommended a more aggressive policy toward Israeli actions in the holy city.