Egypt rejects calls to open border with Gaza

President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday rejected calls to open Egypt's border with war-battered Gaza and hit back at critics of Cairo's response to the Israeli offensive, accusing them of playing politics with Palestinian suffering.

Tyrant Pharaoh Ehud Mubarack must GO!

Mubarak said that Egypt would only reopen the crossing when the Hamas movement which seized control of Gaza in June last year reconciled with Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and allowed him to reassert his authority over the territory.

He said the crossing in the divided border town of Rafah could only be fully opened to people and goods if an international agreement which Abbas signed with Israel when it withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 is respected.

""We in Egypt are not going to contribute to perpetuating the rift (between Abbas and Gaza's Hamas rulers) by opening the Rafah crossing in the absence of the Palestinian Authority and EU observers in violation of the 2005 deal,"" Mubarak said in a televised speech.

Egypt has come under strong criticism for not fully opening the border in the face of Israel's devastating four-day-old air blitz.

It has allowed a handful of wounded Gazans to leave for treatment and allowed some medical supplies in.

But on Sunday Egyptian police fired warning shots in the air to prevent large numbers of civilians fleeing Gaza. More