There was standing room only at the seaside cafe as World Cup fans escaped the Gaza Strip's dreary confinement for a 90-minute match only briefly interrupted by power cuts. Palestinians have always been avid football fans, but this year's tournament is drawing record crowds to flag-decked cafes with humming generators across impoverished Gaza, where there are few other ways to pass the time. "All the people of Gaza have are the sea and the World Cup," says Abu Mohammed al-Sultan, 44, who set up a projection screen at the beach cafe. "I figured I would combine the two and double my customers." Israel and Egypt have sealed Gaza off from all but basic goods and severely limited travel since the June 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier. The sanctions were tightened when Hamas seized power a year later, and Israel has said the closures and its naval blockade are needed to keep the Islamist movement from importing weapons. Since Israel's deadly seizure last month of an activist aid flotilla, both countries have eased the closures, with Egypt allowing some students and patients to leave and Israel expanding its list of permitted imports. But the enclave of 1.5 million residents, 80 percent of whom rely on foreign aid, remains largely cut off from the world, and the World Cup provides a rare release from the grim boredom of day-to-day life. Gazans organised their own mock World Cup last month in anticipation of the real thing, with 16 local teams posing as national squads and "France" routing "Jordan" to win the championship.
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