Back then almost half the 1.5 million population living in the constricted Gaza Strip descended on the Egyptian town of El-Arish and area like a human tsunami, buying everything in sight.

Initial reports on the exodus from Gaza said it was spontaneous, brought about as a result of a blockade imposed by Israel on the Palestinians in the Strip, which was in retaliation to the firing by Hamas gunmen of Qassam rockets on Israeli cities and towns near Gaza.

But we asked in this very space just how spontaneous was the Palestinian surge. What if it were premeditated, meant to "test the waters?" Spontaneous? A spur-of-the-moment affair? Hardly.

Hamas knew that Egyptian troops guarding the Rafah border crossing would not fire on fellow Arabs and Muslims. Had they done so, the results would have reverberated across the Muslim world.

We then warned that the real danger lay in the weeks ahead. Having seen how successful the operation turned out to be, the planners could decide to repeat it, only next time targeting a different crossing point, a border crossing to Israel rather than Egypt.

Indeed, that was a frightening thought.

We wrote: Imagine that two or three weeks from now, once the food and cigarettes and other goods purchased in Egypt have started to run out again, Hamas begins to incite the crowds to carry out a repeat performance. Hordes of Palestinians charging the Israeli frontier would be perceived by Israeli security as nothing less than an attempted invasion of Israeli territory. Hamas knows that the reaction of Israeli border guards would surely be drastically different to the Egyptian response. In fact, they are banking on that.

Well, those three or four weeks are up. As though right on cue, some 40,000 Palestinians are expected to march along the Gaza Strip's border in protest of Israel's economic embargo on the coastal territory.

Israel warned Hamas on Sunday evening that it would carry the responsibility for any consequences that would ensue from a planned march along the Strip's border Monday. "Any harm to civilians would be Hamas' fault," Israel said.

"Israel will defend its territory and will stop any infiltration attempt into its sovereign borders," Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in a joint statement, sent to all Israeli embassies and missions. "Hamas is behind activities that place the civilian population on the front lines," the statement added.

Police in Israel are on the alert after intelligence reports warned that tens of thousands of Gazans were planning to form a human chain from Rafah to the Erez border crossing as early as 10 A.M. on Monday. Israeli troops have already been reinforced.

Wire agencies report that IDF artillery will fire warning shots at open areas; should the protestors continue their advance, troops will employ riot dispersal methods. Snipers will fire at the marchers' legs.

We predicted that such an event would have dire consequences that would send shock waves throughout the Greater Middle East and the Muslim world. From Casablanca to Rawalpindi millions of people will take to the street in protest, plunging the Middle East into its worst crisis in modern history.