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Wednesday, May 12, 2010     FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

Egypt block on smugglers halts cash flow to Hamas regime

CAIRO — Egypt has intensified efforts to block the flow of money and weapons to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

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Security sources said Egypt has reinforced its 14-kilometer border with the Gaza Strip as well as deployed advanced equipment to stop the smuggling of cash and weapons to the Hamas regime.

"For a while, the goal was to just stop weapons while letting money and civilian goods through," a security source said. "Now, it is clear that if you block the money, you can affect a lot of other things as well."


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The sources said Egyptian security forces, through nearly nightly raids in Rafah and other communities along the border, have blocked more than $6 million from arriving to the Gaza Strip. In March 2010, they said, authorities arrested 45 people on charges of smuggling, including one who had carried $242,000 for the Hamas regime.

"Not too long ago, they [Hamas] would assign one person to carry millions of dollars from Egypt to Gaza," the source said. "Now, they are scared, and they divide the money among many smugglers."

For its part, Hamas has acknowledged the Egyptian operations, Middle East Newsline reported. The Islamic regime has linked the Egyptian crackdown to Hamas's failure to pay salaries to the 32,000 civil servants in the Gaza Strip in 2010.

"We are having difficulties in bringing in money because of the siege, and this will not last long," Hamas Deputy Finance Minister Ismail Mahfouz said. "The government has its own reserves, and it can make them available. But it needs a way of getting them."

The sources, denying reports of a Palestinian breach of the security barrier, said Egypt has also been arresting suspected smugglers in the eastern Sinai Peninsula in what appears to have been a successful effort to reduce the illegal trade with the Gaza Strip.

Mahfouz said civil servants haven't been paid their full monthly salaries for March and April. Mahfouz said Hamas required $16 million a month to pay government salaries, which range from $700 to $1,100.

The security sources said the Egyptian crackdown was meant to end Hamas's rejection of a reconciliation agreement with the rival Fatah movement. Egypt has presented a plan that would enable the return of the Palestinian Authority — expelled in 2007 — to the Gaza Strip.



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