Palestinian pilgrims set fire to temporary Egyptian camps

MORE than a thousand Palestinian pilgrims set fire yesterday to temporary camps set up by the Egyptian government to house them until a dispute over how they will return to the Gaza Strip is resolved.

The Palestinians arrived by bus at 11 temporary camps in the Sinai outside the Mediterranean coastal city of el-Arish on Sunday, but refused to occupy them, protesting against Egypt’s attempts to have them return to Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Aouja border crossing.

The pilgrims shouted angry slogans against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his government for not allowing them to cross into Gaza through Rafah, where Israel has no control.

A large number of riot police responded by surrounding the pilgrims and securing the area, as firefighters attempted to put out the blaze. Several Palestinian women fainted from the fire’s heavy black smoke and were taken to El-Arish hospital.

The pilgrims include at least 10 well-known figures from the radical Islamic group Hamas — including Khalil al-Haya, a leader of the group — who fear Israel will arrest them if they cross through Aouja.

Israel, in turn, fears that if the pilgrims are allowed to return to Gaza through Rafah Hamas militants might get through and sympathisers could smuggle cash to Hamas in Gaza.

The standoff is the latest outbreak of tensions over efforts by Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian authority to isolate the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over the tiny coastal strip in June.

Egypt has kept its Rafah border crossing with Gaza closed, a move seen as supporting Hamas’s rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But Egypt is also sensitive over criticism that it is helping worsen the humanitarian situation in impoverished Gaza.

At the same time, Egypt has come under increasing criticism from Israel, which accuses it of not doing enough to stop the smuggling of weapons and money through Sinai tunnels into Gaza.

The standoff over the pilgrims began on Saturday, when 3,060 Palestinians returning from in Saudi Arabia arrived by ferry at the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba in southern Sinai.

Egypt transported 1,166 of the Palestinians to El-Arish on Sunday, but they launched a protest demanding to be allowed back to Gaza immediately. The nearly 1,900 Palestinians waiting in Nuweiba were also scheduled to be brought to el-Arish.