EGYPTIAN SECURITY personnel yesterday detained and searched members of the Hamas delegation returning to Gaza following talks in Cairo on a truce with Israel. One member, Ayman Taha, was denied entry after $11 million in cash was found in his luggage. Hamas has previously been able to carry money into Gaza. The others crossed into the Strip.
Although Hamas is prepared to agree to an 18-month truce with Israel, a number of key issues require clarification.
The delegation’s spokesman,Fawzi Barhoum, said Hamas totally rejected Cairo’s attempt to link a partial opening of crossings between Gaza and Israel to the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas’s affiliates in 2006.
He demanded clarification about Israel’s offer to remove 75 per cent of the goods from its list of prohibited imports into Gaza. He said a proposal for the deployment of Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority border guards at the Rafah crossing with Egypt is “under discussion” and complained that Hamas was being offered no guarantees that provisions of a deal would be implemented by Israel.
Another contentious issue is Israel’s demand for a half-kilometre-wide buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the border fence with Israel. It argues this zone would prevent the infiltration of armed fighters, planting of explosives and digging of tunnels beneath the fence. But Palestinians contend that the proposed exclusion zone would deny farmers the use of 30 per cent of Gaza’s most productive agricultural land.
Israel is holding separate talks with Egypt and is expected to reach a verbal agreement with Cairo on continuing separate ceasefires that took effect on January 18th.
Hamas’s delegation plans to return to Egypt on Sunday after consultations with the movement’s leaders in Gaza and abroad.
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