By Xinhua
Cairo : Egyptian security forces closed the last breach of the border fence along the Egypt-Gaza border on Sunday morning, stopping the flow of Palestinians into the Egyptian side, a security source told Xinhua.
About 300 Egyptian military troops were deployed near Rafah crossing along the Egypt-Gaza border, the security source said on condition of anonymity.
Egyptian forces, with barbed wire and metal barricades, resealed the only remaining gap on the Egyptian side of the border fence, which was blew up by Palestinian militants on Jan. 23 to allow tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to cross into Egypt in the past 11 days.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), who controls the Gaza Strip, has promised to help seal the border incoordination with Egypt, said the report.
Meanwhile, according to report of the pan-Arab television al-Jazeera, hundreds of Palestinians still gathered at the Gazan side of Rafah border crossing.
On Jan. 23, Hamas militants blew up the border wall separating Gaza and Egypt, allowing the Palestinians living in the poor isolated Gaza enclave to cross into Egypt for purchase of daily needs.
The developments at Rafah prompted Egypt to invite Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the past few days for separate talks in Cairo to discuss the reopening of the crossing, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world bypassing Israel.
Abbas and a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to hold separate talks with Egyptian officials on reopening Rafah crossing which has been closed since last June when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip by force.
Abbas, like Egypt, wants the crossing to rework according to a U.S.-brokered 2005 deal which stipulates the presence of EU monitors as a third party on the passage.
On Saturday, a Hamas negotiator said Hamas accepts the return of European Union (EU) monitors to Rafah border crossing if they reside in Gaza or Egypt, but not in Israel.
After three days of separate talks between Egypt, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas, Hamas told Cairothat it has reservations on the 2005 international agreement which stipulated the presence of the EU monitors on the crossing, said the movement negotiator Mohammed Nasser.