By Middle East correspondent Paul Adams

Of all the fruits of last month's Wye memorandum, the opening of Gaza's international airport is perhaps the most symbolically charged.

The opening ceremony for Gaza International Airport

For a narrow overcrowded and impoverished strip of land, hemmed in by Israeli and Egyptian rules and regulations, an airport offers a lifeline to the outside world.

The airport offers a lifeline to the outside world

As inaugural flights arrive from the Middle East and Europe, Palestinians can reflect on another small step towards an independent existence.

But like all such steps, it's heavily qualified.

Israeli officers will maintain control over security, as they do at crossing points into Egypt and Jordan, deciding who comes and goes. Aircraft from countries still formally at war with Israel - such as Syria - will not be allowed to land.

Touch down

Mr Arafat will be there to meet the first arrivals

Disagreement over the scope of Israel's authority has held up the airport's opening for months.

But the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, will be sure to seize on Tuesday's event as further proof of the inevitability of Palestinian statehood.

The first plane to touch down was an Airbus 320 carrying more than 70 Egyptian officials, government ministers and celebrities.

Palestinian official Nabil Shaath: "This is a symbol of our sovereignty"

Mr Arafat was there to meet it, and later in the morning, he is greeting the arrival of his own plane, which until now has had to fly in and out of the Egyptian town of El Arish.