Egypt opened its main crossing into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to allow more than 2,000 Palestinian pilgrims – including at least one official of the armed Hamas movement – to return to their homes there, outraging Israel in a growing dispute over border security. ...

Egyptian officials said at the time that the Hamas group had Saudi visas that had to be honored. Israeli officials assert that the visas were stamped at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo and probably were smuggled back into Gaza via tunnels that Israel asserts Egypt has failed to close.

The Hamas group's departure "tremendously undermined" Abbas, said Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Abbas who is now at the New America Foundation in Washington. He said the Palestinian Authority had understood it would coordinate the movement of the pilgrims, and by accepting the Hamas-sponsored pilgrims, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were "giving Hamas a level of recognition, establishing Hamas as an official counterpart" to the Abbas government. ...

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