Tag: sinai

Sinai Bedouins fear losing homes

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Al-Jazeera:

At least 700 Egyptian Bedouins have protested over fears the Egyptian government plans to remove their houses from an area along the border with the Gaza Strip.
Hundreds of police surrounded the Sinai desert Bedouins as they set several tyres ablaze in the Massura area, on the main road between Rafah and the nearby city of Al-Arish in Egypt.
The demonstrations followed a visit two days earlier by local officials who surveyed land and houses near the border.
This prompted fears among Bedouins that an anti-smuggling measure, that has not been implemented to date, could be used to remove their homes.

Egypt-Gaza border town under curfew

Posted on By 3arabawy

From AP…

Authorities imposed an indefinite curfew on Egypt’s border town of Rafah Thursday following unconfirmed reports that Palestinian gunmen planned to blow up a border wall to allow thousands of Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side to return home, a police official said.
Thousands of police and security forces also were deployed at Rafah and roads leading to the town were sealed off, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Stores and eateries at the town were ordered to close, he said.
On the Gaza side of the Rafah border, around 2,000 Palestinians from different militant factions protested to demand Egypt let through the Gazans stranded in Egypt.
There were no signs to suggest they planned acts of violence.
“Rafah is our only gateway and it must be opened right now,” read one banner carried by protesters.

Riots erupt in Arish airport; 2 Palestinians injured in clashes with Mubarak’s police

Posted on By 3arabawy

From AP:

About 100 Palestinians smashed doors and windows inside an airport building in this Egypt-Gaza Strip border town early Tuesday after being trapped there for more than a month since the border’s closure, police and one of the rioters said.
Dozens of anti-riot police with batons and shields stormed Arish airport and clashed with rioters, injuring two of them, one of the rioters, Mohammed Ali, told the Associated Press.
A police official said that more troops have been deployed to the airport after Tuesday’s clashes, fearing more riots and violence. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
An Associated Press reporter was denied entry into the airport Tuesday but saw dozens of riot police deployed outside the building.
The Palestinians, who do not have entry visas for Egypt, were transferred under security supervision to Arish airport after first arriving at the Cairo airport from trips abroad.
They had expected to then travel onward to the Gaza Strip, but they have been stuck in the Arish airport since Egypt sealed off its border with Gaza after the militant Palestinian Hamas took over Gaza last month.
The Palestinians, mostly students and government employees, trapped inside the airport have complained of increasingly desperate living conditions.
“We are living in a 100 square meters. There are no services. Water is salty and masses of mosquitoes attack us every night,” Ali told the AP on the telephone early Tuesday.
“We have lost our minds. We broke the windows, the palm trees (inside the airport), the doors and everything around us in the airport,” he added.
Along with the 100 Palestinian in Arish airport, there are about 4,000 other Palestinians stranded on Egypt’s side of the Gaza border.