Egypt reportedly is getting tougher on Hamas. The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that new actions include travel restrictions on Hamas officials and tightened border control to prevent weapons smuggling from Sinai into Gaza. “Many Hamas officials have stopped traveling through
the Rafah border crossing for fear that they would be harassed by the
Egyptians,” sources close to Hamas told the Post. “Senior Hamas leaders have also been
humiliated by the Egyptians, who hold them sometimes for hours or days
at Cairo Airport or other border crossings.”Since Hamas took power last year, Egypt has detained several of its officials at the border as they tried to smuggle across large amounts of cash. U.N. monitors at the Rafah terminal estimated that some $60 million has been smuggled across, mostly by Hamas lawmakers, since March 2006. The sources also told the Post that Egypt recently laid down three conditions for visiting Hamas officials: They cannot contact members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group banned in Egypt; they must cut down the number of bodyguards and assistants accompanying them; and they may not hold news conferences or seminars in Egypt.
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