Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel said on Thursday it had foiled plans by Islamist group Hamas to attack Israelis in Jerusalem's largest football stadium, other parts of the city and the occupied West Bank, though Hamas said it had no information on the allegations.

Israel's Shin Bet security service said it had arrested 30 members of the group in September, some of whom had received weapons and explosives training from Hamas fighters in Jordan and the Gaza Strip.

Planning for attacks against Israeli targets, including Jerusalem's Teddy football stadium and the city's light railway, was carried out by Hamas officials in Turkey, Shin Bet added in a statement.

In the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is dominant, a spokesman for the group said: "We have no information about these Israeli claims... It is clear Israel wanted to create a new story to divert the world's attention away from the escalation in Jerusalem."

Violence has surged in recent weeks in Jerusalem amid high tensions over access to a holy site in an Israeli-occupied part of the city where Al Aqsa Mosque now stands and Biblical Jewish temples once stood.

Eleven Israelis have been killed, including four rabbis and a security officer stabbed and shot by Palestinians in a Jerusalem synagogue. Twelve Palestinians have also been killed, including several of those who carried out the attacks.

Shots were fired at an Israeli army patrol vehicle along the Gaza border on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the military said in a statement.

Israeli forces responded by firing a shell towards the source of the fire, the statement said. No casualties were reported on the Gaza side of the frontier.

On Sunday, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian near the border, the first such fatality since a 50-day Gaza war ended in August. The man’s family said he was searching for songbirds to sell in local markets.

Israel has long designated areas near the frontier a no-go zone for Palestinians, citing concerns that militants could plant bombs or carry out surveillance of its patrols.

Palestinians seek Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — lands occupied by Israel after the 1967 war — for their future state. Already troubled peace talks between the two sides broke down in April.

SANAA — An American, a Briton and a South African were among several hostages Yemeni forces sought to free from Al Qaeda this week, the defence ministry said on its website, describing a raid that a US defence official said also involved US special forces.

In Monday night's assault on a cave in remote Hajr as-Say'ar district in the eastern province of Hadramout, Yemeni security forces rescued six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian, and killed seven Al Qaeda kidnappers, Yemeni officials have said.

Late on Wednesday, the defence ministry's 26sept.net website quoted a soldier who had participated in the rescue as saying an American, a Briton and a South African held there had been moved elsewhere two days earlier.

Another foreign hostage, who may have been of Turkish nationality, was also apparently moved along with the three, the soldier was reported as saying. The soldier cited the rescued hostages for that information, the website said.

While Al Qaeda-linked gunmen in Yemen are known to be holding a number of foreign hostages, an American had not previously been reported among them.

There was no word on the identity of the Briton or the South African. South Africa has said one of its nationals, Pierre Korkie, a teacher, was being held in Yemen after gunmen kidnapped him in mid-2013.

US officials say Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has funded its operations with millions of dollars in ransoms received for European hostages.

"Intelligence information had become available that Al Qaeda was holding 11 hostages who had been seen being transported in a... vehicle covered in blankets," the website quoted the soldier, identified as Abu Maarouf, as saying.

Only the eight hostages rescued were found at the end of the operation, the soldier said. Yemen officials have made no reference to any participation by foreign forces in the rescue operation.

But in Washington, a US official confirmed participation of US special operations forces, and a second US official acknowledged US military support.

Yemen, which borders the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is home to AQAP, which Washington regards as one of the most active branches of the network founded by Osama Bin Laden.

The Pentagon said in 2012 the United States had resumed on-the-ground military training to bolster Yemen's fight against Al Qaeda.

Kidnapping is common in Western-backed Yemen, which is battling not only an Al Qaeda insurgency but also a southern separatist movement and sporadic conflicts with armed tribes.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced 78 teenage boys to between two and five years in prison Wednesday for joining protests demanding the return of the ousted Islamist president, judicial sources said.

The authorities have engaged in a crackdown on Mohamed Morsi's supporters since the army deposed him last year, with hundreds jailed in mass trials the United Nations has described as "unprecedented in recent history".

On Wednesday, a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria sentenced 78 boys who are under 18 for joining the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood's rallies in the past three months, a judicial official said.

While the judicial sources said the boys were aged between 13 and 17, their defence lawyer said the youngest was 15.

"The 78 minors, members of the Muslim Brotherhood, were arrested for participating in protests organised by the group calling for the downfall of the regime in which they blocked roads and transportation, and terrified citizens," state agency MENA reported.

They will be held in juvenile detention until they turn 18, when they will be transferred to adult prison.

Last December, the government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a "terrorist organisation".

"The number of children jailed since Morsi's ouster is unprecedented," said Ahmed Messilhy, head of a committee to defend children at Egypt's lawyers syndicate.

Defence lawyer Ayman El Dabi said he planned to appeal the ruling within the next few weeks.

The defendants, he said, were arrested at several protests over the past year and had been in detention since.

Some were not even protesting and "were in the wrong place", he added.

Since Morsi's ouster, the government has launched a crackdown against his supporters that has left at least 1,400 people dead and more than 15,000 behind bars.

A number of Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi himself, are facing trials in several cases that might result in death sentences.

Dozens of Islamists have already been sentenced to death in mass trials.

Morsi was overthrown after millions took to the streets demanding his resignation after just one year in office, accusing him of monopolising power and ruining an already weak economy.

The authorities accuse the Brotherhood of planning and carrying out deadly attacks targeting security forces since Morsi's ouster. The movement has regularly condemned these attacks.

These attacks have been claimed by jihadist groups who say they are in retaliation for the crackdown on Islamists.

The most active such group, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, which claimed an attack that killed 30 soldiers on October 24 in North Sinai, recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

DUBAI — Iran's supreme leader made clear on Thursday he backed extended nuclear talks with world powers, shoring up Tehran's negotiating team against attacks by his hardline acolytes for failing to secure a deal that could have meant major relief from sanctions.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said that if the talks, extended on Monday for seven months beyond the November 24 deadline, ultimately failed, "the sky won't fall to the ground" and that the United States would be the biggest loser if that transpired.

With the two sides having missed a deadline to overcome their differences for the second time this year, Iranians face the prospect of at least several more months of international sanctions that have hammered their standard of living.

But Khamenei, the ultimate authority on all Iranian matters of state, said on his website: "For the same reasons I wasn't against negotiations, I'm also not against the extension."

He added that Tehran's negotiators were "hard-working and serious... [They] justly and honestly stood against words of force and bullying of the other side, and unlike the other side, they did not change their words every day”.

Conservative hardliners remain wary of striking any compromise with the West under moderate President Hassan Rouhani's push for a nuclear deal but also demand explanations about why a year of talks yielded no substantive result.

In another comment issued on his Twitter account, Khamenei said: "We accept fair and reasonable agreements. Where there's bullying and excessive demands, all of Iran, people and officials, will not accept."

The two sides remain far apart on central issues including permissible enrichment capacity in Iran, the length of any final settlement and the pace at which financial sanctions imposed over Tehran's suspected atom bomb ambitions would be dismantled.

Iran denies any aim to develop nuclear weapons capability, saying it is refining uranium only for peaceful energy.

Khamenei also said the security of Israel, Tehran's archfoe, would decline over time. "Know that whether or not we reach a nuclear agreement, Israel becomes more insecure day by day," he said, without elaborating.

Israel, the only Middle East state with a presumed nuclear arsenal, regards Iran's nuclear agenda as a potential mortal threat and is dismissive of the talks, suggesting Tehran is only trying to buy time to become a threshold nuclear power.

Israel has hinted at pre-emptive strikes on Iran's nuclear installations if it deems diplomacy ultimately futile.

BEIRUT — The Islamic State (IS) group is employing multiple tactics to subdue the Sunni Muslim tribes in Syria and Iraq under its rule, wooing some with gifts — everything from cars to feed for their animals — while brutally suppressing those that resist with mass killings.

The result is that the extremists face little immediate threat of an uprising by the tribes, which are traditionally the most powerful social institution in the large areas of eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq controlled by the group. Any US drive to try to turn tribesmen against the militants, as the Americans did with Sunnis during the Iraq war, faces an uphill battle.

Some tribes in Syria and Iraq already oppose IS. For example, the Shammar tribe, which spans the countries' border, has fought alongside Kurdish forces against the extremists in Iraq. The US and Iraqi governments have proposed creating a national guard programme that would arm and pay tribesmen to fight, though the effort has yet to get off the ground.

But in Syria in particular, tribes have no outside patron to bankroll or arm them to take on IS, leaving them with few options other than to bend to IS domination or flee.

"There are people who want to go back and fight them," said Hassan Hassan, an analyst with the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi. "But the circumstances now mean that you can't provoke ISIS because the strategy they've followed and tactics are to prevent any revolt from inside."

The rulers of the self-styled caliphate have mastered techniques of divide and rule. Tribes are powerful institutions that command the loyalty of their members across the largely desert regions of Syria and Iraq. But they are also far from cohesive. Large tribes are divided up into smaller sub-tribes and clans that can be pitted against each other. Such divisions also emerge on their own, often in connection to control over local resources like oil wells or land.

Also, IS itself has roots in the tribes. Though hundreds of foreign fighters have flocked to join the group, most of its leaders and foot soldiers are Iraqis and Syrians — and often belong to tribes.

In eastern Syria's Deir Al Zour province, for example, the Ogeidat is one of the largest tribes. One of its major clans, the Bu Jamel, has been a staunch opponent of the extremists. Another, the Bakir, long ago allied itself to the group.

IS operatives use threats or offers of money or fuel to win public pledges of loyalty from senior tribal sheikhs. The group has also wooed younger tribesmen with economic enticements and promises of positions within IS, undermining the traditional power structure of the tribe.

"They offer many sweeteners," said Abu Ali Al Badie, a tribal leader from the central city of Palmyra in Syria's Homs province. "They go to the tribes and say, 'Why are you fighting against Muslims? We'll give you weapons and cars and guns, and we'll fight together.'"

"They offer diesel and fuel. They bring barley and animal feed from Iraq," he said. "They build wells at their own expense for the tribes and they say, 'Others have neglected your needs'."

In Syria, IS has won the acceptance of many tribesmen in Raqqa and Deir El Zour provinces by ending chaos that reigned when the areas were controlled by a patchwork of rebel warlords. IS provides services including electricity, fuel, water and telephone lines, as well as flour for bakeries, said Haian Dukhan, a researcher at the University of St. Andrews Centre for Syrian Studies.

"Things have started to become stable to a degree, and this is something that people were really desperate about," said Dukhan.

The group has "tribal affairs" officials to handle relations with the tribes, calibrating its style to local dynamics. Often they will allow loyal tribesmen to run their communities' services, said Hassan.

The group also has removed its own commanders who caused tension with tribes in their areas. The idea, Hassan said, is "to remove some of the toxins”.

At the same time, the group sends a clear message to those who resist.

In August, IS militants shot and beheaded hundreds of members of the Shueitat tribe in eastern Syria. Activists reported death tolls ranging from 200 to 700. Photographs in IS' English-language "Dabiq" magazine showed black-clad fighters shooting prisoners said to be Shueitat, lined up on the sandy ground.

In Iraq, IS killed more than 200 men, women and children from Al Bu Nimr tribe in Anbar province, apparently in revenge for the tribe's siding with security forces and, in the past, with American troops. It has also shot dead several men from the Al Bu Fahd tribe.

"Everyone is hiding or fled. They will chop us in pieces if they see us," said Sheikh Naim Al Gaoud, a leader in Al Bu Nimr. "They want us to support them and to join their fight. In return, they say they will let us live in peace."

As a result, Dukhan says there's little chance for a revolt unless tribes are confident the extremists are losing.

"I think that for the time being, seeing a large-scale uprising against IS is just a fantasy."

ALEPPO — Once proud shop owners in Aleppo's picturesque old city market, the merchants of Syria's former economic capital now live off a pittance selling goods on pavements and stalls.

After a major rebel offensive on Aleppo in July 2012, the city's historic souk fell prey to a war that has killed more than 195,000 Syrians and forced nearly half the population to flee.

On Aleppo's storied Furqan street, still in Syrian regime hands, Hussein Abdallah is trying to revive the Arax restaurant brand — famous for its pomegranate-laced falafel patties — which has outlets in Lebanon and the United States.

"We used to own a 40 square metre shop that was constantly full, just as well-known among Aleppo residents as it was among foreigners," said 30-year-old Abdallah, as his workers fried the chickpea-based delicacy in hot oil.

"But the war forced me to shut down the shop my grandfather founded," he told AFP.

Abdallah's old shop was in the Saqtiyeh neighbourhood, next to a market where vegetables, fruits and traditional local dishes were sold.

"Things aren't as good as they once were, but I can't complain. We have to work. This is our country," he said.

Aleppo's souk is the world's largest open-air market. Stretching some 15 kilometres along the winding alleyways of the old city, its oldest sections date back to the 14th century.

But much of the UNESCO World Heritage Site is off-limits, ravaged by fighting in the divided city.

Part of the market has been burnt down and most of it is now under rebel control.

Merchants of all specialities complain bitterly how their earnings have plummeted because of the violence. They still dream about returning to their old shops.

Mohammad Atrash, 51, used to be a car dealer in the Sakhur neighbourhood which is in rebel hands.

Nowadays he sells mushabbak, a traditional fried dough dessert.

"The store my grandfather opened in Bab Jnein burned down, and I had to close my car business. I had to join up with a partner and now we make traditional mushabbak sweets here," Atrash told AFP.

Before the war, Bab Jnein was at the heart of a commercial district that manufactured goods destined for nearby Turkey.

'Who will buy jewellery?' 

Abu Samer was a wholesale silver and oriental jewellery seller, but has now closed the shop he owned.

"At first, I changed my profession. [For a time] I sold electrical appliances like automatic razors. But there's no electricity in the city, so I went back to my original job," he said.

Now in his 40s, Abu Samer started his career working with his father when he was just 13.

"But frankly, who is going to buy jewellery now, when everyone's main concern is to find work and food to eat? My sales have slumped by 70 per cent," he said.

Many merchants living on the rebel-held side of Aleppo have also lost their livelihoods.

Alaa Mubayyed made and sold copper goods in the old city. He now gets by selling fruits and vegetables.

"Tomatoes! Purslane!... Try them, they are better than yesterday's," he hawks to customers, amid the din of nearby gunfire.

"We used to own a shop where we sold oriental copper crafts, and we were very well off. But then the battles started. Barrel bombs and rockets have destroyed the copper market," Mubayyed told AFP.

"Everything was destroyed, but thank God, we are still alive. Honestly, I never thought I would have to start from scratch and suffer this much," said the 34-year-old.

"I hope one day to be able to start again, and that God will reward us. How long will we have to live like this?"

DOHA — At a desert base, Gulf state Qatar is covertly training moderate Syrian rebels with US help to fight both President Bashar Assad and Islamic State (IS) and may include more overtly Islamist insurgent groups, sources close to the matter say.

The camp, south of the capital between Saudi Arabia's border and Al Udeid, the largest US airbase in the Middle East, is being used to train the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other moderate rebels, the sources said.

Reuters could not independently identify the participants in the programme or witness activity inside the base, which lies in a military zone guarded by Qatari special forces and marked on signposts as a restricted area.

But Syrian rebel sources said training in Qatar has included rebels affiliated to the "Free Syrian Army" from northern Syria.

The sources said the effort had been running for nearly a year, although it was too small to have a significant impact on the battlefield, and some rebels complained of not being taught advanced techniques.

The training is in line with Qatar's self-image as a champion of Arab Spring uprisings and Doha has made no secret of its hatred of Assad.

Small groups of 12 to 20 fighters are identified in Syria and screened by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the sources said.

Once cleared of links with "terrorist" factions, they travel to Turkey and are then flown to Doha and driven to the base.

Ground force

"The US wanted to help the rebels oust Assad but didn't want to be open about their support, so to have rebels trained in Qatar is a good idea, the problem is the scale is too small," said a Western source in Doha.

The CIA declined to comment, as did Qatar's foreign ministry and an FSA spokesman in Turkey.

It is not clear whether the Qatari programme is coordinated with a strategy of Western and Gulf countries to turn disparate non-Islamist rebel groups into a force to combat the militants.

Such efforts have been hampered by Western hesitancy about providing significant military aid, because it could end up with extremists. Gulf states dislike the West's emphasis on fighting IS. Assad is the bigger problem, they say.

"Moderate rebels from the FSA and other groups have been flown in to get trained in things like ambush techniques," said a source close to the Qatari government who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the topic.

"The training would last a few months, maybe two or three, and then a new group would be flown in, but no lethal weapons were supplied to them," one of the sources said.

Screening process

As the war against Assad has dragged on, frustrated rebels asked their trainers for more advanced techniques, such as building improvised explosive devices (IEDs), requests which were always denied.

"They complain a lot and say that going back they need more weapons or more training in IEDs but that's not something that's given to them," said a Qatar-based defence source.

The Qatar project was conceived before the declaration of the hardline IS, when militants belonging to its predecessor organisation were not regarded as an international security threat.

The group's rise in Syria and Iraq has hampered the rebellion: Moderate groups cannot fight Assad when the better-armed IS seeks their destruction as it strives to build its "caliphate".

In recent weeks, the Qataris, disappointed by lack of progress in the fight against Assad, have started to consider training members of the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist rebels less militant than Islamic State or the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, but stronger than the FSA.

None have been trained as yet, but Qatar has sought to identify candidates, the sources say.

Some analysts say screening Islamic Front fighters would be harder than FSA rebels, since some Islamists have switched between various groups.

Islamist network

Training fighters from Islamic groups could displease fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates, which dislikes Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood's international Islamist network.

But Saudi Arabia, which shares the UAE's mistrust of the Brotherhood, is more indulgent of moderate Islamist forces when it comes to fighting Assad, diplomats say.

Asked about the Qatari training, a Saudi defence source said: "We are not aware of this training camp, but there's one thing we agree on: Assad needs to go and we would not oppose any action taken towards that goal."

To Qatar, ousting Assad remains a priority and youthful Emir Sheikh Tamim has said that military efforts to tackle IS will not work while the Syrian president remains in power.

A source who works with rebel groups said Qatar had delivered weapons, mostly mortar bombs, to the Islamic Front and some FSA brigades about two months ago and had paid some salaries for Islamic Front groups.

SANAA — As fighting raged at the First Armoured Division's base in central Sanaa, General Ali Mohsen Ah Ahmar arrived in a motorcade at the general staff headquarters and entered the building shouting "Treason! Treason!"

He grabbed some documents from a desk and left in a hurry, a defence ministry official said. Half an hour later, the commander of the Fourth Brigade Presidential Security turned up, collected his car and sped away.

"I knew then that Sanaa had fallen and that it was over," the officer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

"General Al Ahmar was angry and felt utterly betrayed."

While many details of the surrender of Yemen's capital by 100,000 Republican Guards to some 5,000 Houthi fighters on September 21 remain murky, the nature of the capitulation bodes ill for President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's fragile grip on power.

Home to an Al Qaeda branch held responsible by Washington for three attempted bombings of aircraft in the United States, Yemen is close to becoming a failed state, thanks in part to covert manoeuvring from its own ousted ruler and Iran.

Corruption, internal splits and competing loyalties in the army began before former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was ousted by protests in 2011 and are now reaching a critical stage.

Those ailments are partly based on the country's patchwork tribal, sectarian and regional splits, but also on a history of wrangling between powerful political players that came to a head during the Arab spring.

"What happened was not the result of Hadi's mismanagement, but as a result of undermining the essence of the Yemeni state during Saleh's rule over the past 20 years," Yemeni analyst Abdelghani Al Iryani said, referring to the fall of Sanaa.

"The Yemeni state is now at risk of unravelling and falling."

Divided loyalties

Saleh created a rival power base when he put General Ahmar, a close ally of the Sunni Islamist Islah Party, Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood branch, in charge of his 2004-10 crackdown on the Shiite Muslim militias Houthi who now dominate Yemen.

When mass protests broke out in 2011, Ahmar's forces sided with the protesters, including Islah supporters, and clashed with army units loyal to Saleh, who was forced to step down in favour of his deputy Hadi, who had no power base of his own.

Hadi tried to reunite the army in 2012, removing Ahmar from the First Armoured Brigade's command and appointing him as a military adviser. But at the rank-and-file level, the brigade stayed loyal to its old leader, while many other divisions retained ties to former president Saleh, insiders said.

The Houthis emerged early last decade demanding more rights for the fifth of Yemenis who follow Shiite Islam' Zaydi branch. They have since cast themselves as a national revolutionary movement, and have fought the army six times from 2004-10.

Analysts say two developments helped their rise to power: A tactical alliance with Saleh and a more strategic tie-up with Shiite power Iran.

The Houthis have sought to replicate the strategy of Iran's Lebanese ally, Hizbollah, using popular support among Zaydis combined with a muscular military presence to dominate politics.

Iran denies interference in Yemeni politics. But an Iranian official told Reuters Tehran had "always backed the Houthis".

As the Houthis began their drive southwards from their power base in Yemen's far north last year, they mostly fought army brigades and tribal fighters loyal to Ahmar and Islah, while the rest of the army remained reluctant to join in.

"When these forces are despatched to fight Al Qaeda in the south, they fight valiantly. But the tribal affiliation takes precedence when they are sent to fight at home," an adviser to Hadi told Reuters.

He said the army had repeatedly refused to fight the Houthis, first in July when the president ordered reinforcements to forces in the northern city of Amran battling the militia.

He attributed their reluctance to regional and tribal loyalties, but politics may have played a part too.

Yemeni officials say Saleh, known for political manoeuvring skills that he once compared to dancing on the heads of snakes, had intended to get rid of Islamists he views as being responsible for his downfall after 33 years in office.

According to a US government document seen by Reuters, Saleh "had reportedly become one of the primary supporters of the Houthi rebellion" in the hope that instability would allow him to regain power via a coup.

Soldiers and officers loyal to Saleh and discharged by Hadi's army restructuring since 2012 joined the 'popular committees' set up by the Houthis to capture Sanaa and keep order in the city, Yemeni officials said.

Fighting during the 2011 uprising between army units loyal to Saleh, and those loyal to Ahmar, had also played a part.

"How can one expect us to come to their aid, even against the Houthis?" said Shayef Mohammed, a Republican Guards officer whose army camp had been besieged by Ahmar's First Armoured Brigade.

The Houthis argue that Yemeni army and security forces, fed up with corruption and mismanagement, have chosen to be neutral.

An aide to Hadi, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officers in charge of special forces guarding southern Sanaa had forced their commander to sign a non-aggression pact with the Houthi field commander on the eve of the battle for the capital.

Hadi ultimately decided that an attempt to block the Houthis would risk a wider catastrophe, the aide said, comparing the president's task to that of the pilot of a hijacked airplane.

"It doesn't make sense to abandon the cockpit and go to quarrel with the hijackers, even if they kill some of the passengers," he said.

CAIRO — Gunmen shot dead on Wednesday three Egyptian policemen in the Sinai Peninsula, where militants regularly launch attacks on security forces, the interior ministry said.

The three policemen, including a colonel, were travelling in a pick-up truck in North Sinai's provincial capital El-Arish when assailants in a car shot at them and fled, the ministry said in a statement.

The attack came several days after two policemen were killed in a roadside bombing at the entrance to the town.

Egypt's military is battling an Islamist insurgency in the peninsula that has left scores of policemen and soldiers dead since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year and cracked down on his supporters.

The government declared a state of emergency in parts of North Sinai after an October 24 suicide attack near El-Arish killed at least 30 soldiers in the deadliest assault on security forces since Morsi's ouster.

Militant groups claim their attacks are in retaliation for a government crackdown targeting Islamists that has left hundreds dead and thousands jailed.

CAIRO — Egypt reopened the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on Wednesday for the first time since its closure in late October after a bombing in the Sinai Peninsula, officials said.

The crossing, which is the only access point to the Palestinian territory not controlled by Israel, will open for four hours on Wednesday and Thursday, a government official said.

"The crossing is being opened for two days to help traffic mainly from Egypt to Gaza," the official said, suggesting that for now, the reopening was only temporary.

An AFP correspondent on the Palestinian side confirmed the terminal had been opened but said he saw nobody crossing into southern Gaza during the first hour it was operating.

It was not immediately clear whether Palestinians stranded outside Gaza had been informed in advance of Cairo's plans to reopen the crossing.

Palestinian officials said the terminal was operating in only one direction — allowing people in but not out.

"This measure only applies to those who are stuck outside of Gaza and wish to return and not to Palestinians who want to leave Gaza," Maher Abu Sabha, director of border crossings in the Gaza Strip, told AFP.

The United Nations says more than 3,500 Palestinians have been stranded on the Egyptian side since the crossing was closed after a suicide attack killed 30 soldiers in North Sinai on October 24.

The attack, in an agricultural area northwest of provincial capital El Arish, was the deadliest assault on Egyptian security forces since the army deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The closure of the crossing has also prevented thousands of Gazans from accessing medical treatment or higher education in Egypt and beyond, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest report.

During the first six months of the year, when the crossing was closed for a total of 22 days, an average of 6,400 people crossed each month, it added.