Israel Matzav

Egypt stops Gaza smugglers

Egypt stopped smugglers from bringing a large amount of explosives from Sinai into Gaza on Sunday.

Egyptian security sources in central Sinai seized a store of explosives slated to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

The report quoted Egyptian security sources as saying the explosives, located near a police station in the Sinai peninsula, were waiting to be picked up by smugglers who planned to illegally bring them into Gaza through smuggling tunnels.

The raid was carried out by security forces, accompanied by tanks, police dogs and bomb disposal experts. The weapons cache was discovered in a two meter deep hole in the ground, covered with palm leaves.

A Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) report released last month said that smugglers of arms into the Gaza Strip were operating almost freely after a change of leadership in Egypt.

The report said with Egypt's new leaders preoccupied with stabilizing their country, "governance in Sinai is not high and this allows smugglers to operate almost without hindrance.

Here's my guess. The Egyptians are going to stop 'Palestinian' smuggling that they see as a threat to them, but not smuggling that is seen as a threat to Israel only. Therefore, the Egyptians will stop the smuggling of explosives, because explosives can be used (as they were in early 2008) to destroy the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza. But they will not stop rocket smuggling, because rockets will not be used against Egypt (an Egyptian response would be far less restrained than ours and Hamas knows it) but will be used against Israel.

Labels: Egypt, Gaza, smuggling tunnels

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:59 AM