"Egypt opened shelters on Thursday to house hundreds of Palestinians stranded at the closed border with the Gaza Strip for fear that some could resort to sleeping on the streets, an Egyptian official said.
Border guards and police patrolling the Egyptian border were put on alert over concern that Palestinians in Gaza would blow holes in a border wall to allow those stranded to return home.
The Rafah crossing point into Gaza has been largely shut since June 9, shortly before Hamas Islamists routed Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and took control of the territory.
The Egyptian Red Crescent estimates that roughly 5,000 Palestinians are stranded in dusty Egyptian towns in north Sinai. Many of those have been living in cramped, low-budget hotel rooms or sleeping on mats on the floor in bare concrete shelters as their money runs out.
Ahmed Abdel Hamid, the governor of northern Sinai, told reporters that the government had set up seven shelters in schools, military camps and a youth shelter in el-Arish that could house 900 Palestinians.
"These centers have opened now ... They were opened after some Palestinians ran out of money to guard against them sleeping in the streets," Abdel Hamid said.
He said meals would be served on a daily basis to Palestinians living in the shelters, but the authorities had so far only managed to raise part of the necessary funds.
Local public hospitals had also been instructed to treat stranded Palestinians for free, Abdel Hamid said. He added that more schools could be used to house Palestinians.
Egyptian officials say that most of the stranded Palestinians are Gazans who sought medical treatment abroad, although some were holidaymakers.
Although Palestinian and Egyptian officials technically control the crossing, it can be blocked by Israel......"
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