Egyptian authorities have detained a Hamas leader upon arrival at Cairo airport from Saudi Arabia, a security source said.
Hassan Youssef al-Seifi, undersecretary of the Hamas-led Awqaf Ministry, arrived at Cairo airport from Jeddah on Tuesday to attend a conference, the source said.
“He was detained after his name appeared on a watch list,” the source said.
Relations between Egypt and Hamas had soured since the Egyptian military ousted democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi in a 2013 coup, with Egyptian authorities tightening their grip on the Rafah border crossing – Gaza's only outlet to the world outside of Israel's control.
Egyptian media blames Hamas, an ideological offshoot of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, for a series of deadly attacks on security forces carried out since Morsi's ouster.
Hamas, for its part, has consistently denied the claims.
