Hamas leaders change Egypt hotel over protests

Cairo: Hamas leaders visiting Cairo have been asked officially to change the hotel where its delegation is staying in, after receiving intelligence that protests will be held outside, sources told Gulf News.

Egyptian security told Hamas’ chief in exile Khaled Mesha’al and Gaza premier Esmail Haniyeh, along with a delegation of 24 party officials, that demonstrators would be rallying outside the Intercontinental Hotel to protest the Islamist movement’s “intervention in internal Egyptian affairs,” the sources said.

The delegation is in Cairo for emergency talks with Mohammad Badi, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt.

Egyptian security had been asked by protesters to “send Hamas leaders out of Egypt,” responding that they were prepared to defend the delegation, the sources added.

The sources affirmed that the change in hotel was required because forces did not “have the situation under control”. The movement has come under sharp criticism in recent weeks after former Egyptian Interior Minister Mahmoud Wajdi said Hamas took part in prison riots during Egypt’s revolution.

The orchestrated attacks on prisons in Egypt during the uprising in 2011 saw over 20,000 detainees escape.

Around 40 Hamas and Hezbollah members reportedly escaped, together with over 30 leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. Mahmoud Zahhar, a senior Hamas leader, denied last Tuesday, these accusations saying his movement had never interfered in Egypt’s security but that it maintained constant contact with Egyptian intelligence services.