Egypt's allowing more than 2,000 Palestinian pilgrims to return home to Gaza, with Hamas leaders among them bypassing Israeli border checks, has further strained already touchy relations between Israel and Egypt.
After five days in the Egyptian desert, the pilgrims moved quickly into Gaza on Wednesday when Egypt opened the only direct crossing between the two, at Rafah. Israel, concerned that Hamas leaders among the pilgrims were smuggling large amounts of money to circumvent a blockade against Hamas, insisted that the pilgrims pass through an Israeli-controlled crossing.
When all the estimated 2,150 pilgrims returned, and thousands celebrated in southern Gaza after nightfall, Hamas declared victory. Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas government in Gaza, thanked Egypt and congratulated his people for returning "without being subject to harm or extortion from the Israeli occupation."
Israel considers Hamas a terror organization and has closed off Gaza since the Islamic militants overran it in June. The returning pilgrims feared that Israel would make arrests if they were routed through an Israeli crossing.
Egypt also sealed the Rafah crossing after the Hamas takeover, opening it only rarely.
Egypt and Israel have been at odds over smuggling of large quantities of weapons, ammunition and contraband into Gaza through tunnels under its border with Egypt. Last week Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni charged that Egypt is doing a "terrible" job policing the border, and Israel forwarded to Washington what it said was a videotape of Egyptian soldiers allowing Palestinian arms smuggling.
Egypt responded to those moves by charging that Israel was trying to persuade the US government to cut aid to Egypt, threatening diplomatic retaliation.
Though relations between Israel and Egypt, who signed a peace treaty in 1979, have never been more than cordial, the past weeks of diplomatic insults is almost unprecedented.
An Egyptian official said on Wednesday that Israel had been "informed" of the Egyptian decision to let the pilgrims back.
But Israeli defense officials said Israel did not approve their return, and that Egypt's decision "contradicted understandings" reached in a meeting last week between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Israel has conveyed its outrage to the Egyptians, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said that Egypt's decision on the pilgrims was not diplomatic retaliation.
"It should not be seen in this context," he said, calling it a humanitarian issue.
The standoff was sensitive for the Egyptian government, which is worried about being seen in the Arab world as worsening Palestinians' hardship in Gaza.
Also, the situation had threatened to deteriorate into further Palestinian protests in the Sinai. Any use of force by Egypt would likely spark widespread anger among its own population and other Arabs -- even more so because the Palestinians are Muslim pilgrims, who are supposed to be allowed to travel as freely as possible.
At the crossing, some pilgrims pushed their suitcases in carts, topped with boxes of Coca-Cola and Fanta -- coveted soft drinks that have become all but impossible to find in Gaza since Israeli shut its borders.
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