CAIRO: Egypt’s leading religious scholar Mohammed Tantawi has condemned the blocking of Muslim pilgrims as an “abominable crime” after Hamas prevented the faithful from leaving the Gaza Strip over the past four days.
“Whoever prevents (a Muslim from pilgrimage) is committing an abominable crime,” state news agency MENA quoted him as saying yesterday.
Egypt’s government said it opened its Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Saturday to allow 3,000 Palestinians to embark on the Haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
But Hamas blocked pilgrims who had obtained Saudi visas through the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that does not recognize Hamas after it violently took over Gaza last year.
The Haj is one of the five tenets of Islam, which each devout Muslim who has the means must fulfill at least once in their life.
Hamas, which has increasingly used harsh crackdowns against its opponents in Gaza, has been heavily criticized for blocking the pilgrims.
Rafah is the only Gaza border crossing not controlled by Israel, which has been blockading the impoverished territory since Hamas seized power there, routing Fatah.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the Saudi Foreign Ministry dismissed Hamas allegations that the Kingdom refused Haj visas to pilgrims from Gaza.
“We treat all Palestinians equally,” the spokesman said, and added that Saudi authorities issued Haj visas to thousands of Palestinians from all Palestinian territories, including Gaza.
