BEIJING, June 22 -- In the Mideast, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered the army to allow Gazans stranded at the Erez crossing into Israel.

    Wounded Gazans in need of medical treatment will be allowed passage to Israel to escape the crossing's squalid conditions. Shortly after the announcement, Israeli medical services said they had evacuated four wounded Palestinians to Israeli hospitals.

    About 200 Gazans, petrified by the chaos in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip, have been camped out for six days in a tunnel on the Palestinian side of the Erez border crossing. They have been pleading with Israeli authorities to grant them safe passage to the West Bank.

    Some in the tunnel feared for their lives because of their Fatah loyalties. Others sought a better life than what the volatile Gaza Strip has to offer.

    Among them were people wounded in gun battles between the rival factions.

    "They shot fifteen, one on the legs, when they knew that they were coming to Erez and they caught one and killed him. so abnormal, abnormal situation." one wounded Palestinian said.

    Four evacuees have been transferred to Israeli hospitals through the crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

    They were wounded in an attack near the Erez crossing when militants from Gaza fired at and threw grenades at a group of stranded Palestinians. They were seeking refuge in Israel and the West Bank following Hamas' take over of Gaza.

    "We went to Erez, some problems happened there and we were there for four days. We started receiving threats from Hamas to go back to Gaza but we didn't obey so they sent four armed guys who killed Jihal al-Madhoun." a wounded Palestinian said.

    The Israeli Defense Ministry has instructed officials to let in humanitarian cases at the crossing's border. Israel says it is letting through international organizations' staff, people with special permission and humanitarian cases.

    (Source: cctv.com)