Egypt: No Gaza border deal without consent of Israel, PA

[bemildred]

Hamas has voiced confidence that Egypt will supply the Gaza Strip with its basic needs to avoid a humanitarian crisis, but an official source in Cairo said on Sunday that Egypt would make no deal to reopen its Gaza border without the consent of Israel, Western powers and Hamas's Fatah rivals in the West Bank.

Egyptian and Hamas officials held talks last week. Following the meeting, senior official and spokesman for Hamas Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters in an interview following the meetings: "There is an understanding with the Egyptians to supply Gaza with its needs and we are talking about arrangements and a mechanism to make that happen."

However, the Egyptian source said Cairo was for now likely to stand by a U.S.-brokered agreement it made when Israel withdrew troops from Gaza in 2005 that gives Israel an effective veto over movement across the Gaza-Egypt frontier. "That's where we stand at the moment," the source told Reuters, making clear Cairo was not prepared to harm relations with Israel, the United States, European Union and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "The Israelis don't want anything to do with Hamas at all, even at second-hand."

Egypt's leaders view Hamas with mistrust as allies of their banned Islamist opposition.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/955034.html

[Vegasaurus]

1. And the Egyptians actually DO want something to do with Hamas?

Could have fooled me. They couldn't close up that breach quickly enough, and in fact, made sure that there was no food or fuel at stores or stations in Rafah after a couple of days, so that the Palestinians would go home, and so that they could close up the gates.

Easy to make the US or Israel the scapegoats, but Egypt wants nothing to do with Hamas either.