Hamas Sees Egypt’s Mursi Defying Israel, Ending Blockade

The head of the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip said on Friday he was confident Egypt’s new president would shield the Palestinian enclave from Israeli attack and fully open its borders to end a trade blockade.

Mohamed Mursi, who won power in last month’s presidential election in Egypt, is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and ideologically close to Hamas.

The Gazan Islamists long complained that his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, ousted from power last year in a popular revolt, sided not just with Israel, but also with their political rival — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

So far, Hamas has seen little sign of a policy shift since Mursi took office and diplomats said the Egyptian leader had so many domestic problems that he could ill-afford to dedicate much time to re-tooling Cairo’s relations with the Palestinians.

However, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Gaza government, told worshippers in a mosque that change was coming.

“We are confident that Egypt, the revolution led by Mursi, will never provide cover for any new aggression or war on Gaza,” he said. “We are confident that Egypt, the revolution led by Mursi, will not take any part in blocking Gaza,” he added.

Reuters