Thousands of Egyptian security forces were deployed in the Egyptian border town of Rafah as they supervised the return of Palestinians to Gaza and prevented them from heading toward the nearby Sinai town of al-Arish.

Although the Egyptian authorities sealed all but one opening in the border barrier, which Palestinian militants blasted open last week, and the Egyptian leadership allowed them to enter, people and cars continued to cross in both directions on Tuesday.

But news footage showed far more movement into Gaza than the number of Palestinians going into Egypt after the Egyptian authorities ordered the closure of all shops in the town of Rafah, which had run out of supplies.

Egypt blocked new supplies of goods being transported from Cairo to the Sinai Sunday after half of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians swarmed into the bordering towns through the only frontier that bypassed Israel, to purchase food, medicine and fuel that had depleted in Gaza after Israel on Jan. 18 imposed a lockdown on the strip.

On the Palestinian side of the border, members of the Palestine Legislative Council, based in Gaza, held a rally calling on the Egyptian leadership to keep the border open and to help some 1,000 Palestinians thronging the main police station in al-Arish seeking entry visas into Cairo.

They included the sick seeking medical treatment in Cairo or abroad, students trying to return to their universities, and professionals wanting to go back to their jobs in other Arab countries, mostly in the Gulf, before their residency permits there expire.

Meanwhile, Arab television news channels said the Egyptian security authorities were consulting with Hamas' Executive Force on resealing the Rafah border, a day before Egyptian leaders are scheduled to meet separately with rival Fatah and Hamas teams to discuss how to resolve the frontier crisis.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has been walking a tightrope between Fatah and Hamas, will meet separately Wednesday with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and a Hamas delegation led by Mahmoud Zahar to mediate a formula for supervising the Rafah border.

When Hamas overthrew the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip last June, Egypt shut down its border with Gaza after PA and EU monitors withdrew from the post, effectively imprisoning Gaza's 1.5 million people who were also forbidden from passing through Israel's border crossings with the strip.

The looming threat of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the influx of Palestinians into Egypt during the past week have sparked interest in reviving or modifying a 2005 agreement signed when Israel withdrew from the strip in 2005, leaving the Jewish state to monitor crossings with cameras.

Hamas, however, wants to be part of any arrangement that would keep the border open and wants to keep the Israelis out of the equation. The Islamic group indicated its readiness to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority, which has a separate government in Ramallah, in supervising the border with the Egyptians, but is unlikely to agree on handing over all its control to Abbas.

However, the Palestinian Authority prime minister, Salam Fayyad, insisted the PA would oppose any attempt by Hamas to amend the 2005 agreement.

Palestinian officials, however, told the Middle East Times privately that although Abbas refuses to negotiate with Hamas until it revokes its takeover of Gaza, he would be flexible in accepting Egyptian proposals to keep the Rafah border crossing open and organized.

Egyptian diplomats said one of Cairo's proposals that could be accepted by both factions would suggest handing over the border's supervision to "neutral" Palestinian forces that belong to neither Hamas nor Fatah.

One diplomat told the Middle East Times that if both rival factions "are genuine in serving the interests of the Palestinians in Gaza, they will put their differences aside to agree on this one issue."

However, both Israeli and the United States renounce Hamas as a "terrorist organization" and are unlikely to accept its role in negotiating a new arrangement that may implicitly recognize Hamas' legitimacy.

Israeli officials say they welcome any agreement between Mubarak and Abbas on sharing control over the Rafah crossing, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that Washington would support Abbas in deploying security forces along the border.

Nevertheless, the Egyptians hope that if they can persuade Fatah and Hamas to accept a new formula for the Rafah crossing that would give neither side the upper hand, Cairo would be able to sell it to the United States and Israel.