worldtribune : Egyptian citizenship was granted by Morsi to 13,000 Hamas members
Cairo : HelloEgy.
Egypt has begun to track Hamas members who became citizens of the Arab country.
Egyptian sources said the military-backed regime has been collecting data on thousands of Hamas members who received citizenship over the last two years.
They said Egypt’s first Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, granted citizenship to nearly 15,000 Hamas members.
“Under Morsi, Hamas was regarded as an extension of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, and members who lived in Egypt, even part-time, were given citizenship and full rights,” a source said.
The sources said the Interior Ministry has determined that Morsi granted citizenship to 13,757 Hamas members from June 2012 until his overthrow in July 2013. They said the ministry plans to revoke the citizenship of all of these Hamas members.
On March 4, an Egyptian court banned Hamas activities and ruled that its assets must be confiscated. The court ruled that Hamas participated in the Islamic revolt in Egypt in which more than 1,200 were killed over the last seven months.
Egypt has accused the Hamas regime of harboring Brotherhood leaders in the Gaza Strip. On March 1, Brotherhood deputy guide Mahmoud Ezzat was said to have been killed in a shootout in a hotel near Gaza City.
Ezzat was said to have been directing the revolt in Egypt with help from Hamas and Al Qaida-aligned militias.
“In the first place, Ezzat is not in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Islam Shawan said on March 5.
The sources said most Hamas members were believed to live in Cairo and Alexandria. But they said the Interior Ministry assessed that at least several thousand were based in the Sinai Peninsula, undergoing a revolt since 2011.
“We believe that we will find a good portion of these terrorists and send them back to where they came from,” the source said.
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