Reinforcements deployed after Sinai police camp attacked

Palestinians stuck at Rafah crossing which links Gaza Strip and Egypt Egypt sent police reinforcements to the Sinai after an attack on a police camp on Monday in the wake of the kidnapping of security personnel, officials said. In Cairo, the presidency said all options were on the table to secure the release of the three policemen and four soldiers held last week in the lawless peninsula.
Eighty Central Security (riot police) units and 26 armoured personnel carriers were deployed in North Sinai hours after a police camp came under fire with heavy weapons, security officials said.
The dawn attack further heightened tensions in the peninsula after last week's kidnapping.
"The presidency did not negotiate with criminals," spokesman Omar Amer told reporters, implying that future talks were not ruled out altogether.
"There are many alternatives on the table, but the goal is the release of those kidnapped," Amer said.
"We don't want a single drop of blood spilt," he said.
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi had previously pledged not to negotiate with those responsible for the kidnapping.
Egyptian police earlier closed commercial passages with Israel on Sunday in support of colleagues who shut down a crossing with Gaza to protest the abduction of policemen, state media reported.
The protesters say the commercial al-Ouga crossing between Egypt and Israel will remain closed until three policemen and four soldiers abducted by gunmen in the Sinai peninsula are released, the official MENA news agency reported.
Police had shut down the Rafah crossing with the Palestinian Gaza Strip to the north on Friday, a day after gunmen abducted the policemen, who worked in the crossing, and soldiers.
State media has said security officials were in talks with the abductors via local Bedouin leaders who hold sway in the restive peninsula.
Gaza’s Interior Minister Fatehi Hammad has meanwhile revealed his government is negotiating through “intensive contact” with Egypt to reopen the Rafah crossing, four days after Egyptian soldiers first closed the commercial entrance to the Palestinian territory.
“The Rafah crossing will likely reopen over the next two days,” Hammad said in a press statement on Monday.
However negotiations had proved fruitless by Monday morning.
Border officials meanwhile estimated that around 2,500 Palestinians trying to re-enter the Gaza Strip were stuck on the Egyptian side of the border.
Officials described “harsh and painful” conditions on the single point of entry that links Palestinians in Gaza with the outside world.
Egyptian officials have claimed the crossing could remain closed for “several more days.”
Hamas leader Salah Bardawil has denounced accusations that kidnappers currently holding the seven Egyptian soldiers and police were being harboured inside Gaza, dismissing them as “deserters and outlaws in Egypt’s Sinai.”
A video appearing to show the kidnapped men emerged on Sunday.
In response, Egyptian lawyer Khaled Abu Bakr called for the arrest of the alleged “terrorists” responsible.
“These terrorists must be brought either shackled, alive or dead,” Abu Bakr said in a Facebook posting on Monday.
“After I watched the video of the Egyptian soldiers treated as prisoners, I couldn’t sympathise with the kidnappers. They are terrorists and must be prosecuted,” human rights activist Hafez Abu Saada added on Twitter.
A spate of hostage-taking has rocked the Sinai, which borders Israel as well as Gaza, but they usually last for no longer than 48 hours and are often carried out by Bedouin seeking the release of jailed relatives.
Such abductions have been on the rise since the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak.