Hundreds Of Palestinians Stranded After Egypt Blocks Gaza Border

[HuffingtonPost]

CAIRO, May 18 (Reuters) - Egyptian police angered by the  kidnapping of seven colleagues by Islamist gunmen kept a  crossing into the Gaza Strip closed again on Saturday, stranding  hundreds of Palestinian travellers, witnesses said.                

The protest began on Friday when police strung barbed wire  across the Rafah border post and chained up the gates, local  residents said, a day after the abductions.                

Gunmen demanding the release of jailed Islamist militants  had seized seven policemen and soldiers on a road between the  Sinai towns of el-Arish and Rafah. Three of those abducted had  worked at the Rafah border crossing, locals said.                

"We will not open the crossing until the kidnapped soldiers  are freed and the interior minister arrives to listen to our  demands so that these attacks on us are not repeated," one of  the protesting policemen said on Saturday.                

Hardline Islamist groups in North Sinai have exploited the  collapse of state authority after the overthrow of former  President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 to launch attacks across the  border into Israel and on Egyptian targets.                

The protesting policemen called on Egyptian President  Mohamed Mursi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, to help  free their colleagues.                

Security sources said on Saturday all seven hostages  remained missing, retracting their report the previous day that  one policeman had been released.                

A spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement,  which runs the Gaza Strip, criticised the Egyptian police action  and said contacts were under way to resolve the standoff.                

"There are promises to follow up on the matter, but in spite  of these promises the suffering is still building up. We  consider the continued closure of the crossing unjustified and  incomprehensible," Sami Abu Zuhri told Al Jazeera television.       (Reporting by Yousri Mohamed and Omar Fahmy; Writing by Shaimaa  Fayed; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Via: HuffingtonPost