Israel Matzav

Gaza smuggling tunnels up and running; UPDATE: Video added

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that Hamas has its Gaza smuggling tunnels up and running again (or should that be down and running again).

AP Television News footage showed Palestinian smugglers Wednesday filling a fuel truck with petrol that came through a cross-border tunnel from Egypt. The footage also shows workers busy clearing blocked tunnels and bulldozers carrying out other repairs.

One of the stated goals of the IDF offensive was to stop the smuggling through the hundreds of tunnels under the border. The goods coming through have included a steady flow of rockets and other weapons.

Israel has said eighty percent of the smuggling tunnels were destroyed in bombing raids during the IDF's Operation Cast Lead.

When Israel stopped Operation Cast Lead, it said that it would treat weapons smuggling the same as rocket launching. If you search this story around the web, you will see that none of the foreign reports says a word about weapons smuggling. My guess is that for now, the Israeli government will take the position that no weapons are being smuggled through the tunnels - until it is presented with incontrovertible proof otherwise. Give it a week or so.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian official said on Wednesday that Cairo planned to discuss with Israel its desire to station additional border guards along the Philadelphi Corridor in order to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza.

"We expect to start negotiations about the Egyptian request to put an additional number of border guards (along the Philadelphi Corridor) soon," he said. "The idea is on the table and we will negotiate it."

The official would not say when it would be negotiated or how many additional troops Egypt would request to add. Many other proposals, including the moat proposal and building a barrier around the Egyptian part of Rafah, are currently "being studied" by Egypt, he said.

Amos Gilad, the head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau, was scheduled to visit Egypt on Thursday.

Similarly, the London-based newspaper, Al-Hayat on Wednesday quoted Mohammed Bassiouny, chairman of the Egyptian Parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, as saying that there were ongoing Israeli-Egyptian negotiations concerning doubling the number of Egyptian forces at the border.

"We requested 750 additional soldiers to monitor this region….after the protocol that was signed with Israel, in which a border guard unit consisting of 750 soldiers actually arrived."

In contrast to the Egyptian source who talked to the Jerusalem Post, Bassiouny indicated that Egyptian-Israeli negotiations were continuing in an effort to achieve this goal, according to Al-Hayat.

But from Egypt's perspective, so long as the Gazans stay in Gaza, they really don't care whether weapons are smuggled into Israel.

In the picture at the top, a 'Palestinian' is filling a jerrycan with smuggled fuel at a gas station near a smuggling tunnel (AP assures us that it's smuggled fuel).

UPDATE 12:52 AM

AP has finally posted the video with the tunnels up and running to YouTube. Let's go to the videotape.



Amazing how Israel's 'leaders' managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, isn't it?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:58 PM