Rafah, Egypt  - Egypt partially opened its border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, Palestinian and Egyptian officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The crossing at the town of Rafah, which is bisected by the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, will be open for three days to allow medical patients, their family members, doctors and journalists stranded on both sides of the border to cross.

An Egyptian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told dpa that a total of some 3,300 Palestinians, including approximately 800 students at universities in Egypt and other Arab countries, would cross the border over the next three days.

Students and some 1,500 other Palestinians who could prove that they had valid travel documents and permits to live or work in Egypt or other Arab countries would be allowed to cross the border, the Egyptian official said.

The Rafah border has been one of the central issues in Egyptian- brokered, indirect negotiations between Palestinian factions and Israel.

Palestinian negotiators want the border to be opened as part of any truce agreement. Israeli negotiators want assurances that weapons smuggling across the border will end.

Israel's security cabinet on Wednesday said that Israel would not open its borders with the Gaza Strip until Hamas released Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip in June 2006.

The announcement drew protests from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. Hossam Zaki, a spokesman for the ministry, on Thursday told Cairo's official Middle East News Agency that the Israeli decision "undoubtedly would damage efforts to finalize a long-term truce."

The Egyptian foreign ministry on Thursday recalled an Egyptian delegation in Israel to expand trade between the two countries. The foreign ministry later said that decision was based on "technical reasons," and was not intended as a political statement. dpa