CAIRO: Egypt has the sovereign right to build a wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was cited as saying Saturday.
In remarks to Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper, the Palestinian leader said the wall, which extends underground in an apparent attempt to curtail a network of smuggling tunnels, was “a matter of Egyptian sovereignty.”
Egypt has been under international pressure to curtail the lucrative smuggling trade in basic commodities, livestock, drugs, weapons and more through the tunnels since the imposition of blockade on the coastal enclave after Hamas solidified its control.
“The wall ... is in fact the same wall” already along the border, “with reinforcements made to the foundations buried underground,” the editor of Cairo’s official Al-Gomhuriya daily wrote Thursday, in the first admission of the much-rumored construction.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki earlier this week, in separate interviews to media outlets, stopped short of confirming reports of an underground wall, but defended Egypt’s “right” to take such steps.
“Be it a wall or detection hardware, the important thing is that Egypt’s territory must be protected; it must not be violated in any way,” Abul Gheit told the government weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi.
The weekly was questioning him about “reports concerning the construction by Egypt of a steel barrier along the border with Gaza and the deployment in the border area of American equipment to detect tunnels” used by smugglers.
Previously security sources had only confirmed witness reports anonymously, while Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the barrier will reach a depth of 30 meters and 10 kilometers long.
Abul Gheit told Al-Ahram Al-Arabi: “Egypt has the right to control its border.” “The Palestinian cause is dear to our heart and the Egyptians have paid a heavy price defending this cause, but Egyptian territory and its security are more important than anything else,” the foreign minister said.
A network of tunnels beneath the Egypt-Gaza border provide a crucial economic lifeline to Gaza, which has been sealed off from all but vital humanitarian aid by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took over in June 2007.
