Egypt blows up houses for Sinai buffer zone

Al-Jazeera.com :
Egypt has started work on a controversial buffer zone by destroying homes along its border with the Gaza Strip, following some of the worst attacks on the army since President Mohamed Morsi was ousted last year.
Bulldozers began destroying several abandoned houses along the frontier on Wednesday, just days after armed men attacked an army post killing 31 soldiers in the area. Egypt has declared a state of emergency in the Sinai Peninsula and indefinitely closed the Rafah crossing, the only non-Israeli passage for Gazans.
It also accelerated plans to create the 500-metre deep buffer zone, and told the area’s 10,000 residents they had 48 hours to pack up and leave before they would destroy around 800 homes.
The buffer zone will extend along the 10km border with Gaza, with water-filled trenches to thwart tunnel diggers. Authorities say the border area is used by criminal gangs to smuggle arms from Gaza to Sinai, and have promised to compensate affected families with the monetary value of their properties and rent money for up to three months.