12 armed Palestinians held
2008-02-01 10:12
Cairo - Egyptian security services have arrested 12 Palestinians in possession of arms and ammunition on suspicion of planning anti-Israeli attacks in the Sinai, said a security official.
The official said late on Thursday that the arrests were carried out separately near the Rafah crossing with Gaza that was torn down by Hamas militants and near the Ahmed Hamdi tunnel, which leads to the sea resorts of southern Sinai.
Two militants of the Palestinian Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad were among those arrested, he said, declining to be named. All the suspects arrived in Egypt via Rafah, apart from two who had travelled from Gulf states.
Israel had banned its citizens from entering areas along its border with Egypt, fearing attacks by Gazans who poured into the Sinai desert after militants blew open the territory's border with Egypt.
It also closed the main road along the more than 100-kilometre-long frontier with Egypt - with which Israel had a 1979 peace treaty - to civilian vehicles.
Resorts on the Red Sea coast of Egypt's Sinai peninsula were popular with many Israelis, but had also been the target of deadly attacks.
Hundreds of thousands Palestinians were estimated to have crossed into Egypt from Gaza since militants blew up the Rafah border barriers with on January 22 amid a punishing Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.