Report: Egypt to maintain Gaza blockade until Hamas reconciliation

Mar 30, 2010, 12:40 GMT

Cairo - Egypt will maintain a partial blockade on the Gaza Strip until Hamas signs a reconciliation deal with rival Palestinian faction Fatah, diplomats told a leading Cairo daily Tuesday.

Egyptian efforts to broker a reconciliation agreement between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which controls Palestinian-administered areas of the West Bank, stalled in October.

The independent daily al-Shorouq on Tuesday cited anonymous Egyptian diplomats as saying that closure would remain in effect until Hamas signed the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal Fatah signed in October.

Israel and Egypt closed the Gaza Strip's borders after Hamas took control of the territory's security forces in 2007. According to the international charity Oxfam, the volume of humanitarian supplies entering the Gaza Strip is now at 32 per cent of the average before the blockade.

A lucrative trade in basic commodities, drugs and weapons has taken root along the border, with smugglers tunneling under border fortifications. Israeli warplanes have in recent weeks bombed the border area, and Egyptian police have destroyed tunnels used to smuggle goods and weapons across.

'The decision to destroy tunnels is taken according to Egypt's pledges not to allow the borders with Gaza to become a means for smuggling,' an Egyptian diplomat told al-Shorouq on condition of anonymity.

Egyptian officials have repeatedly defended tightened security along its border as necessary for maintaining its 'sovereignty' and 'national security.'