AFP

GAZA CITY GAZA’S Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh was due to visit Cairo on Thursday for top-level talks with his Egyptian counterpart Hisham Qandil, a spokesman said.

“The prime minister will leave for Cairo on Thursday to meet with his Egyptian counterpart and hold talks on security and issues relating to the blockade,” Hamas spokesman Taher al- Nunu said in a statement.

Late last month, a Hamas delegation travelled to Cairo for a series of security talks which came several weeks after an August 5 attack in northern Sinai which killed 16 Egyptian border guards.

Egyptian officials pointed the finger at Gaza militants, saying some of the gunmen had reached Sinai through the cross-border smuggling tunnels.

Cairo temporarily closed the Gaza border at Rafah and shut down or demolished scores of tunnels in smuggling network, a key conduit for bringing goods, fuel and building materials into the Palestinian enclave which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2006.

Hamas has insisted there is no proof that any Palestinian was involved in the deadly attack.

Meanwhile, militants from Gaza on Wednesday fired two projectiles into southern Israel that exploded without causing casualties or damage, a military spokeswoman told AFP.

“They hit in open areas in the Eshkol region,” she said. It was not immediately known if rockets or mortar rounds had been fired.