Authorities in Egypt will close the Rafah crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip until further notice. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said it had been informed by Egypt of the decision to shut the crossing in both directions, without giving details.
According to Egyptian security sources, the closure followed an escalation between Israel and Hamas over the weekend, with Israeli aircraft striking sites in Gaza after gunfire across Gaza’s border with Israel earlier in the day.
The Rafah crossing was virtually sealed by Egyptian authorities since a terrorist attack in the Sinai Peninsula in October 2014, though they temporarily reopened the crossing several times since that attack, mostly for humanitarian causes.
Egypt has continued to blame Hamas terrorists for providing the weapons for the lethal 2014 attack, which killed 30 soldiers, through one of its smuggling tunnels under the border to Sinai, an allegation Hamas has constantly denied.