http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043355.html
Last update - 18:27 03/12/2008 Egypt MP: We won't let Hamas form an Islamic emirate in Gaza By News Agencies Tags: Hamas, Israel News, Egypt A ranking Egyptian official on Wednesday lashed out at Hamas, saying the militant Palestinian group won't be allowed to set up an Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip, the coastal territory which it controls. Mustafa el-Fiqi, who heads the Egyptian Parliament's foreign relations committee, said Egypt wouldn't tolerate an Islamic state on its eastern border. Egypt is increasingly displeased with Hamas - especially after it boycotted Egypt-mediated Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo last month. El-Fiqi's comments Wednesday indicate that Egypt plans to continue efforts to isolate the Gaza Strip. Hamas security frees three reporters in Gaza Hamas security forces freed three Palestinian journalists on Wednesday whom they had arrested last month under accusations that they had fabricated news critical of the Islamist group, officials said. The journalists worked in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for the Palestine Press, a local news agency with ties to the group's main rival, President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. A Hamas internal security official said the three men were released after they confessed that they had "fabricated reports" critical of the Hamas cabinet and its security forces. One of the journalists, speaking to reporters and human rights officials -- as Hamas security men stood nearby -- said after their release: "We made a mistake and it won't be repeated." The Hamas security official said the release followed "intense intervention by fellow journalists" who appealed to the group's leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh. Since Hamas routed Fatah forces in Gaza last year, activists had traded accusations of persecution. The Islamist group says several Hamas-affiliated journalists have been imprisoned by security forces loyal to Abbas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
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