The sights and scenes in Gaza Strip immediately after the Israeli troop pullback Monday, Sept 12, filled Israel’s defense leaders with dread. Total loss of control was manifested by the Palestinian Authority and the Egyptian border police, who stood by as tens of thousands of Palestinians indulged in a wild orgy of destruction, burning, looting and hurling themselves back and forth across the Gazan-Egyptian border unchecked.

Long months of painstaking negotiations with Egypt, the Palestinians and the United States for coordination on post-evacuation security were trampled underfoot. IDF sources estimated Tuesday night, Sept 13, that in two days, about 20,000 Palestinians had flocked into Egyptian Sinai from the Gaza Strip – most intending to stay there - and 3,000 Palestinians had crossed into the Gaza Strip.

Not a single Palestinian security officer was visible on the horizon. Egyptian border police, deployed under a binding protocol with Israel to block the border to unauthorized traffic, obligingly helped infiltrators clamber over the wall marking the frontier.