The Arab Democrat The Latest From The Arab World
Related Articles
On Tuesday, An official of the Palestinian Islamist movement (Hamas) has been detained at Cairo airport when he tried to enter Egypt coming from Saudi Arabia .
An airport source said , that Hassan alSaifi, whose name figures on an Egyptian watch list, was detained on arrival , he was still at the airport and would likely be deported.
It was not immediately clear why he was detained. But Egypt this week temporarily opened Rafah border crossing with Gaza and al Saifi probably was trying to reach Gaza.
Egypt, under President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, has had strained relations with the militant Islamist movement that controls the neighboring Gaza Strip. As Hamas is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood movement of Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi, whom Sisi overthrew in 2013 when he was army chief.
An Egyptian court had blacklisted Hamas as a terrorist organization, but earlier this year the ruling was overturned on appeal.
