CAIRO: The governor of North Sinai Murad Mowafi denied reports that two Egyptians had been killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike and that Egypt had refused to accept the bodies at the Rafah border crossing.
Reports had emanated last Wednesday about the death of two Egyptians in a camp in Northern Gaza. Allegedly Hamas authorities had attempted to turn over the bodies to their Egyptian counterparts via the Rafah crossing, but that authorities at the crossing had refused to accept the bodies. They were then reportedly buried in the Palestinian side of Rafah.
Mowafi completely denied that this had taken place, Al-Shorouk newspaper reported on Sunday. He said that he had personally checked records at the Rafah border crossing and nothing of the sort had occurred. He also criticized the media for publishing reports without checking its veracity, adding that this story was an attack on Egypt.
North Sinai shares a 13 km border with the Gaza Strip, and the border demarcation lies through the middle of the town of Rafah, which has Egyptian and Palestinian sides.
North Sinai Tagammu party member and former MP candidate Khalil Jabr Sawarkeh told Daily News Egypt that there had been no news of this incident on the Egyptian side of the border, but this did not mean the story might not have happened.
He added, “Many Egyptians go to Gaza through the tunnels to seek work as laborers there, so there are Egyptians in Gaza, and it makes sense that some could be caught in an Israeli attack.”
Tunnels permeate the Egypt-Gaza border as Gaza has been under a blockade since Hamas took sole control of the territory in 2007 from rival Palestinian faction Fatah.
The tunnels are used mainly to transport goods that are in short supply in the Strip but people also travel through the tunnels. Egypt has been building an underground barrier to put an end to the tunnel activity beneath the border.
