Al-Arish, EGYPT (Agencies)

Egyptian security forces clashed early Wednesday with members of a convoy led by left-wing British politician George Galloway trying to take relief supplies to Palestinians in the Gaza strip.

A Reuters correspondent in the port city of Arish, 40 km (25 miles) from Egypt's border with Gaza, saw security forces throwing stones at about 520 people travelling with the convoy.

An Egyptian soldier was also shot dead an Egyptian security source said. The source said the 21-year-old was shot by gunfire from the Palestinian side of the border at Rafah.

The protestors were holding four members of al-Arish harbor police while security forces detained seven members of the convoy, who have been locked in a dispute with Egyptian authorities over the route of the 198 trucks.

Police used water cannon to force the protestors to leave Arish harbor, which they had occupied, a security source said. Around 40 members of the convoy had minor injuries while around 15 police officials were hurt, witnesses said.

Cairo insists the food and other supplies should go to Gaza via an Israeli-controlled checkpoint while the convoy's leaders want to use the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing.

	It is completely unconscionable that 25 percent of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza. Because nothing that ever goes to Israel, ever arrives in Gaza
British MP George Galloway

"Completely unconscionable "

Egyptian authorities wanted 55 of the trucks to go to the Israeli checkpoint, said Galloway, the sole member of the British parliament for the Respect party who has long campaigned for the Palestinian cause.

"We refused this," he told Reuters. "It is completely unconscionable that 25 percent of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza. Because nothing that ever goes to Israel, ever arrives in Gaza."

Cairo has imposed strict regulations and restrictions on pro-Palestinian foreign activists who have held protests in Egypt since late December to mark the first anniversary of Israel's three-week offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

It has also controlled the movement of Palestinians and some foreigners at Rafah and is building a controversial steel wall along its border with Gaza to prevent smuggling.

Elhamy Aref, a local government official in North Sinai, was trying to negotiate a deal between the two sides on releasing the detained people, the Reuters correspondent reported.

Cairo accused the convoy organizers of trying to embarrass Egypt. Leaders of the convoy originally refused Egypt's condition that the aid should be shipped via al-Arish on the Mediterranean rather than via the Red Sea port of Nuweiba. But they later relented and started arriving at al-Arish on Thursday.

Israel and Egypt have severely restricted travel to and from the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized power there in June 2007, after winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006.

Hamas's takeover of the impoverished and densely populated territory led to an Israeli blockade that allows in only very basic supplies. Gaza was devastated in a war last winter between Hamas and Israel.