Palestinians who attempted to breach the Eyptian border were fired upon by Egyptian border guards, the Press Association reports. The incident sparked the flooding of hundreds of addition guards to lock-down the area.

An Egyptian security official said there were at least five breaches along the nine-mile border and hundreds of Palestinian residents were pouring in…

A resident of the Gaza Strip side of the border, Fida Kishta, said that Egyptian border guards opened fire to drive back the Palestinians.

Residents have also commandeered a bulldozer to open new breaches.

No deaths were reported, but several people are said to be injured.

Jihad Watch:

All these Palestinians were trying to do was get out of Gaza. They lobbed no rockets into Egypt. They indulged in no genocidal rhetoric about wiping Egypt off the map and driving all the Egyptians into the sea. They never celebrated as heroes the murderers of Egyptian civilians on buses and in restaurants. Yet when the Egyptian border guards opened fire on these Palestinians, they could be secure in the knowledge that the world would not utter a peep of protest. Everyone will be fine with this. Only the Israelis engage in “disproportionate violence.”

Chicago Boyz:

Will Egypt begin building a similar barrier along their 9 mile border with Gaza? To be frank, I really doubt the Egyptians have the kind of money it would take to construct something as effective. But I think they will start to do what they can to beef up what they have.

The world press wasn’t very sympathetic to Israel when they started to build their security barrier. What do you want to bet that they won’t bother to report any activity by Egypt to seal their own border with Gaza?

There is, as both bloggers noted, a severe double-standard when it comes to military action involving Israel. You heard little-to-nothing about terrorists lobbing hundreds of missiles in Israel for the past week. But God forbid Israel retaliates, after having clearly warned that it would do so, and the world is outraged.

That said, what an interesting scenario when Egypt and Israel appear to be on the same side.

Haaretz reports that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni traveled to Cairo to inform Hosni Mubarak that Israel would be striking Hamas. The Egyptian government is explicitly blaming Hamas for continuing to fire rockets into Israel in the face of repeated warnings from the Israelis that there would be a response. And now Egypt is sealing its border with the Gaza strip and opening fire on Palestinians seeking refuge.

Hmm.