Last night, the Quartet’s Special Envoy James Wolfensohn and his aides convened high-level talks on opening the Rafah crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Minister of Planning Ghassan Khatib deemed the issue “critical to easing Gaza’s economic and humanitarian crisis and vital to stabilizing its political and security situation.” He expressed hope the Israel would agree to a resolution as early as tomorrow, when the next meeting is scheduled.

The Rafah Crossing point lies on Gaza’s border with Egypt and is expected to represent one of the main corridors of trade and travel between a future state of Palestine and the outside world. “Opening Rafah is a significant step towards freeing an entire civilian population. It will mean more jobs, more trade, and ultimately more hope.”

Currently, over two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.3 million residents subsist on US$ 2.25 or less per day while paying some of the highest electricity rates in the world to Israel. The World Bank and the United Nations have identified Israel’s “closure regime”—its systematic restrictions on travel and trade within and between the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank and beyond—as a direct cause of the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territory.

“In fact,” the Minister asserted, “Israel has tightened its grip on the Palestinian people and their economies since completing its evacuation. Karni crossing…used to average 50 truckloads of Palestinian exports destined for the West Bank each day,” he said. “Now only an average of 20 [truckloads] make it through.”

Nevertheless, Minister Khatib said he was “cautiously optimistic [since] we achieved small but meaningful progress [in the more than four hours of discussions].” But he cautioned that while coordination is good, no one can afford to fail. “In general, we have an historic opportunity to negotiate a fair and viable solution to this conflict. To seize this opportunity, we need to actually improve people’s daily lives. Gaza has been strangled for too long; we need to ease the suffocation of Gaza now.”

When asked about James Wolfensohn’s role, who called and chaired the series of meetings, Minister Khatib said that he had been “a positive, constructive, and essential presence [in bringing the Palestinians and Israelis together].”

A follow-up meeting on Rafah has been scheduled for tomorrow. Talks between Israelis and Palestinians on customs and security are also scheduled to be held later this week.