Hundreds of residents in the Gaza city of Rafah, near the Palestinian-Egyptian border, have been complaining of the continuous sounds of penetrating explosions on the Egyptian side, Pls48.net news website reported on Tuesday.According to the news website, residents said that they could not sleep and their children are being traumatised. After suffering through the brutality of Israel's latest war, which killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, the sounds of explosions have become, for them, intrinsically connected with death.
For the third week in a row, Egyptian military forces have continued their operation to set up a controversial buffer zone between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, displacing thousands of Egyptians from their homes in an area stretching about 1,800 metres.
The operation started in wake of the killing of 31 Egyptian soldiers in two separate attacks in the Sinai Peninsula last month.
The Egyptian mass media immediately blamed the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas for the attacks, as part of a propaganda campaign waged against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip ever since the July 2013 coup that toppled Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi.
The post-coup military government also accused Hamas of carrying out the attacks, without providing any evidence to back up these claims.
Hamas has denied all accusations and described the killing of the Egyptian soldiers as an "aggressive" act. The movement also said it is ready to cooperate with Egypt's probe of the incident.
In addition to accusing Hamas of the latest attack, the Egyptian authorities also closed the Rafah Crossing; the only window Gaza's 1.8 million residents have to the outside world. This has doubled the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza, who have experienced a strict Israeli siege since mid-2007.
