CAIRO/GAZA: Egypt’s foreign minister says his country’s building of a barrier on the border with Gaza is meant to defend “against threats to national security.”
Ahmed Aboul Gheit told state-owned MENA news agency on Tuesday that the measures involve “construction, engineering work and ultrasound equipment” along the boundary with the Hamas-run coastal strip. It was the first official acknowledgment of the construction.
Reports surfaced last week that Egypt is installing a series of metal sheets deep along the Gaza border to block tunnels used to smuggle weapons into the Palestinian territory. The smuggling has continued after Israel’s offensive in Gaza last winter.
Egypt is under fire from Arab and Muslim groups for cooperating with Israel in a two-year blockade of Gaza. Hamas and other groups called on Egypt on Tuesday to stop building a steel wall along the Gaza border that could block tunnels through which goods and weapons are smuggled into the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
“Hamas sees the continued building of the wall as unjustified and it will bring catastrophe on the Palestinian people, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told a news conference, where the group and other factions urged Cairo to end the project.
Egyptian officials have said steel tubes were being placed in the ground at several points along the 14-km-long border, but they did not specify their purpose.
