BBC Online :
Egyptian authorities have ordered residents living along the country’s eastern border with the Gaza Strip to evacuate their homes prior to their demolishing because the army plans to set up a buffer zone.
The measure comes four days after armed men attacked an army post, killing at least 31 soldiers in the restive area in the northeastern corner of the Sinai Peninsula.
After the attack, Egypt declared a state of emergency and a dawn-to-dusk curfew there. Authorities also indefinitely closed the Gaza crossing, the only non-Israeli passage for the crowded strip.
The buffer zone, which will include water-filled trenches to thwart tunnel diggers, will be 500m wide and extended along the 13km border, officials told the AP news agency. It aims to stop weapons and trafficking between Egypt and the Palestinian territory.
