CAIRO: Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar was refused entry to Egypt on Saturday, airport sources said, giving no reason why his name was on a list of people banned from the country.
Omar, 34, Osama Bin Laden’s fourth-eldest son, was traveling with his British wife Zaina Al-Sabah from Doha, and they asked to be sent to Turkey, the sources said.
The couple, who lived in Egypt for several months in 2007 and 2008, were previously denied entry to the country in 2008.
Omar Bin Laden broke with his father in 2001 after living in Afghanistan for much of 1996 to 2001.
In an interview with Reuters in 2010, Omar said he was working with Saudi Arabia and Iran to end his separation from a group of brothers and sisters that dates back to the chaos in Afghanistan following the Al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Omar said Bin Laden’s children were trying to be “good citizens of the world” but suffered from the lack of a father and the stigma of being the Al-Qaeda leader’s children. None were part of Al-Qaeda, he said at the time.
“We are working with the Iranian government and with the Saudi government at the moment to have my mother’s children and grandchildren join us,” he said.
Osama Bin Laden was killed at his Pakistani hideout by US commandos in 2011 in a major blow to the militant group, which carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bin Laden’s son denied entry to Egypt
Bin Laden’s son denied entry to Egypt
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
