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Last update - 14:49 26/12/2008
Egypt to deport 500 Palestinians who crossed in border breach
By The Associated Press
Tags: Egypt, Gaza Strip, Israel 

Egyptian police have rounded up some 500 Palestinians in the northern Sinai Penninsula over the past four days and plan to deport them back into the Gaza Strip shortly, Egyptian security sources said on Monday.

The Palestinians are some of at least 3,000 left inside Egypt after hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents crossed the border in January, when Hamas militants blasted through the frontier fence.

Egyptian police are holding the 500 Palestinians at a youth hostel in the provincial capital El Arish preparing for their repatriation, one security source said.
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Police have been raiding furnished apartments and chalets in north Sinai in search of Palestinians, the source added.

But other Palestinians are staying with relatives and friends in El Arish, the nearby town of Sheikh Zuweid and in the border town of Rafah, he said.

The Egyptian government held talks last week with Hamas, which has control of Gaza, but the two sides have not yet announced any agreement for the border to reopen.

Hamas has voiced confidence that Egypt will supply the Gaza Strip with its basic needs to avoid a humanitarian crisis, but an official source in Cairo said on Sunday that Egypt would make no deal to reopen its Gaza border without the consent of Israel, Western powers and Hamas's Fatah rivals in the West Bank

Earlier this month, Egypt resealed the border with the coastal strip, which was breached for twelve days beginning in late January when Hamas militants blew up the boundary wall and set off a flood of Palestinians into Egypt to shop for supplies.


Egypt uncovers 100 kg of explosives near Gaza border

Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces on Monday uncovered an explosives cache containing 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds) of TNT hidden in sacks near the country's volatile border with the Gaza Strip, a police officer said.

The cache, found buried a few feet deep in the soil in a deserted area of the northern Sinai peninsula, came after police acted on a tip from local
Bedouins, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

The find took place near Sheik Zuwiyed town, some 15 miles west of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

The Bedouins led the authorities to the location of the explosives. A total of three sacks of TNT were found, the official said.

Smuggling across the border into Gaza or Israel has long provided a livelihood for some Bedouin. Weapons, cigarettes and foreigners seeking jobs in Israel are all taken surreptitiously across the border.

Israel has repeatedly accused Egypt of not doing enough to stop weapons
smuggling into Gaza, particularly through tunnels. Cairo has promised it would make a greater effort to stop smuggling.

The Sinai has seen three major bomb attacks since October 2004. The blasts in the resorts of Sharm el-Sheik, Taba and Dahab killed 125 people. The government blamed the attacks on a local Islamic militant group, which appears to have been inspired by al-Qaida ideology.

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      3.   no one wants them..and for good reason 18:27  |  Avi 18/02/08
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