GAZA CITY: Hamas, which controls Gaza, prevented scores of Muslims wanting to attend the annual pilgrimage to Makkah from reaching the Rafah border with Egypt yesterday, witnesses and pilgrims told AFP.
Police from the group set up checkpoints several kilometers from the border between the city of Khan Younis and the Rafah crossing to stop anyone passing through, the witnesses said.
Around 10 people were lightly injured when the police used sticks and batons to turn people back, the witnesses added.
Egypt announced Friday that the Rafah crossing would be open for three days beginning yesterday to allow the passage of some 3,000 Palestinian pilgrims who hold visas for Saudi Arabia.
An Egyptian security official told AFP buses were waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, but that no pilgrims had arrived.
This year’s hajj has become embroiled in the deepening chasm that has cut through Palestinian politics since the Hamas seizure of Gaza in June last year.
Hamas refuses to recognize the authority of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, which President Mahmoud Abbas installed in response to the Gaza takeover.
In Gaza, the administration continues to be run by Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister whom Abbas ousted.
Last week, Haniyeh’s religious affairs minister Talep Abu Sher said he would not allow pilgrims who had obtained their Saudi visas through the government in the West Bank to join the Haj unless the Hamas administration too is given a quota to allocate to the faithful.
Jamal Bawatna, religious affairs minister in the West Bank, said Saudi Arabia had granted visas to all Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who applied via his government.
