Egypt building wall along sensitive Gaza border

RAFAH, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt is building a stone and cement wall on its sensitive frontier with the Gaza Strip to block Palestinians from again breaching the border to circumvent an Israeli-led blockade, security sources said on Thursday.

Egyptian workers were removing a barbed wire barrier and replacing it with a 3 meter high wall along the frontier with Hamas-run Gaza, Egyptian witnesses in the border town of Rafah said. Three kilometers of the new wall was already complete.

"The new wall will help Egypt better secure its border with Gaza," an Egyptian security source told Reuters, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

"The wall that the Palestinians destroyed during the breaching of the Egyptian border was of a low height and easy to breach."

The source would not say if the new wall would be built over the entire length of the 14 km Egypt-Gaza border, or only in specific places.

The wall was being built on Egyptian territory about 20 meters from Egyptian homes in Rafah. Witnesses said construction began after Egypt sealed the border last month after a breach.

Hamas militants blew open the Gaza-Egypt border in January, allowing Palestinians to flood into Egypt to seek relief from the blockade. The border has since been resealed.

President Hosni Mubarak has said Egypt was working to lift the blockade of Gaza and reopen the Rafah crossing, where Hamas has demanded a key role. Hamas seized control of Gaza in June.

The Egyptian government says it would like the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to take charge at the crossing point. Abbas and his Fatah group have little influence in Gaza.

(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Dominic Evans)