Handing over aid at Gaza border

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Aid crosses over the border but Israelis and Palestinians do not see each other. By Roger Hearing BBC News, Kerem Shalom crossing

Halfway through the daily cessation of hostilities in Gaza, Israeli officials are passing hundreds of tonnes of flour, cooking oil and medicines to Palestinians. But they never actually meet them.

The procedure is an extraordinary illustration of the mistrust at the root of much of what is happening. The lorries queue up along the long dusty road at Kerem Shalom, on the Gaza border with Israel and Egypt, to bring supplies.

We're trying to keep the aid going in, while preventing people from talking... one day, I'm sure, they'd like to shake hands Cpt Dorone Spillman, IDF

One by one they drive into huge enclosures surrounded by concrete blast-walls, 5m-6m high. The lorries are unloaded and the desperately needed goods are carefully stacked and searched.

Then the Israeli forklift drivers park and leave. The white metal gates automatically close behind them and tubular roadblocks spring up from the ground across the entrance.

Never meeting

Far away on the other side of the enclosure, another set of white gates silently starts to open.

In a few moments, through a gap in the Israeli gate, we can see older, more battered Palestinian lorries rumbling in, and Gazan workers rushing to the empty forklifts.

A well drilled operation. Lorries with aid trundle in and out of the enclosures.

In perhaps forty minutes, it's all done and they're gone - the Israeli gates open - and the whole bizarre process begins again.

"It's very interesting,", says Cpt Dorone Spillman of the Israeli Defence Forces.

"You have a team that has been working here for years, to bring aid from here into the Gaza Strip.

"One person drops off the object - and the next person picks it up - and they never, ever, actually meet.

"On a personal level... I hear them talking on the walkie-talkies. 'Hassan, how are you?' and they go back and forth.

"They know each other's kids. However there is a security issue here. For both sides there's a concern that if identities are passed, if information is passed - it could present a harmful environment for the IDF.

"So we're trying to keep the aid going in, while preventing people from talking. The aid goes through but on a personal level, one day, I'm sure, they'd like to shake hands."

Mortar shell

But for us, there is something less friendly than a handshake. About two hours into the official three hour break from fighting, there's a loud crump that rocks the blast walls.

GAZA CRISIS BACKGROUND <a class="" href="/2/hi/middle_east/5122404.stm">Profile: Gaza Strip</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/middle_east/7818022.stm">Q&A: Gaza conflict</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/middle_east/1654510.stm">Who are Hamas?</a><a class="" href="/1/hi/world/middle_east/7380642.stm">Middle East conflict: History in maps</a>

A mortar shell has flown over the barrier from Gaza and landed in the fields behind us.

There is a rush to the secure room - a kind of concrete bus shelter - as the security men shout that they have seen some rocket launches on their CCTV cameras on the other side of the wall.

There is not really an "all clear" but we emerge sheepishly over the next 10 minutes.

By then most of the lorries on our side have departed, and on the Palestinian side, the workers are still loading and clearing, apparently oblivious to any threat.

And then they're gone too, just minutes before four o'clock and the end of the brief lull in the bombardment.

By my watch, the first big bang came at two minutes past, away off to the north.

Within half an hour there was another, closer - perhaps in Khan Yunis, the large city between us and the sea - and a swirl of grey smoke became visible above the furthest blast wall.

The truce was over.

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