When he was about to return to Gaza after talks with Egyptian authorities, a senior member of Hamas was arrested on 5 February by the Egyptian secret service. Nine million dollars and two million euros were found in his possession. According to a source close to the Egyptian secret service, the man was Ayman Taha, a spokesman for the Islamist movement in Gaza. Taha reportedly refused to be searched at the Rafah terminal. Hamas has not yet confirmed the information.

Hamas has been known to smuggle cash into the Gaza Strip. Egyptian banks generally refuse money transfers into the Palestinian territory. In 2006, a senior Islamist said they had crossed the border with $ 42 million.

The Hamas delegation left the negotiating table earlier in the day, declaring that a truce in the Gaza Strip is impossible without open borders. Mohammed Nasr, one of the negotiators from Hamas, had indicated the group’s readiness to resume talks in Egypt after Cairo conducts talks with Israel.

The non-agreement for a possible truce is not at all surprising. Radical Islamists generally do not exist for peace. Chaos is their most basic business. Their seeming stubbornness, in the name of patriotism, is their modus operandi. It is also not surprising that a Hamas member was found with loads of cash. Radical Islamists are known to be wealthy, thanks to their sponsors and patrons. What is surprising is the fact that they still ask for open borders when they can neatly manage to smuggle their armaments into Gaza, uncontrolled and unregulated.

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Via Yahoo! News