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Hamas Takes Stricter Measures on Gaza Border with Egypt | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Media ID: 55376513
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Hamas member watches over the border with Egypt. (AFP)


London, Gaza – The militant Hamas movement announced on Tuesday that it was taking stricter security measures along the Egyptian border of the Gaza Strip.

The decision was made a day after a Hamas delegation had held talks in Cairo with Egyptian authorities on security issues.

A spokesman for the Hamas Interior Ministry Ayad al-Bazam said that the movement has issued orders to take the new measures on the border with Egypt.

He said that the ministry’s undersecretary Toufik Abou Naeem had visited the area where he inspected the security measures there.

“Abou Naeem held several meetings with the concerned sides and recommended taking a series of new measures and exerting all possible means to bolster stability on the border,” al-Bazam added.

“Stability on the southern border with Egypt is a priority for us and we will not allow any security threat there,” he declared.

Cairo had demanded that Hamas cut ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, control the border and pursue Salafist extremists and prevent their movement to Sinai to Egypt.

It had urged it to share any security information that is related to Egypt and halt the smuggling of weapons through Sinai.

Cairo had also asked Hamas about the fate of a number of Brotherhood and Salafist figures.

Hamas had in theory severed its ties with Brotherhood in wake of its announcement of its new founding document. In it, it does not define itself as a movement that is associated with the Brotherhood.