Hamas extradited a wanted Al-Qaeda militant to Egypt in exchange for Cairo's agreement to allow dozens of stranded Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to return to the Gaza Strip, a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Monday, quoting the Palestinian news agency Maan.
Scores of Palestinian militants who had been stranded in Egypt since Hamas took over Gaza in mid-June were allowed back into the territory on Sunday, witnesses said, signaling possible new accommodation between Cairo and the Islamist group, Haaretz said. Egypt has straddled a diplomatic fence with Hamas, neither shunning it nor accepting its violent removal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction from the Gaza Strip. But in what Hamas sources described as a deal with Egypt, about 85 militants crossed into Gaza overnight through Rafah, a border terminal with Egypt that had been closed since Hamas seized power.
Egypt's Interior Ministry confirmed that they had agreed with Hamas to transport the people across the border. It gave no explanation. Israel, which opposed the return of some of the Palestinians, said it was unaware of an Egypt-Hamas agreement. |