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Friday, July 25, 2008

Israel presses Egypt to stop arms smuggling to Gaza by Bedouins

TEL AVIV — Israel has identified hundreds of Egyptian smugglers who relay arms and explosives to the Gaza Strip.

Officials said Israeli military intelligence has submitted names of 250 smugglers in the weapons flow to the Hamas regime, Middle East Newsline reported. They said most of these smugglers were identified as Bedouins who live in eastern and central Sinai.

"We have asked the Egyptians to deal with the families of smugglers operating in Sinai," Israel Security Agency director Yuval Diskin said.

In 2008, officials said, Israel relayed the names of the smugglers and their location to Egypt as part of an effort to enhance security cooperation. So far, they said, not one Egyptian smuggler has been arrested.

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"Egypt accepts the fact that there is smuggling from its territory, part of the Middle Eastern theater of the absurd," Diskin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on July 22.

Officials said the Israeli intelligence community has assessed that the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was facilitating weapons smuggling to the Gaza Strip. They said Egyptian officers were captured on video as cooperating with smugglers, who relay weapons through the tunnel network with the Gaza Strip.

"The state of Israel has lost its deterrence because it is unequipped to deal with infiltration [from Egypt]," said Brig. Gen. Yoel Strik, commander of the army's Edom Division, stationed on the Israeli-Egyptian border.

Israel has complained to the United States regarding Egypt's refusal to arrest the smugglers. Congress has passed legislation that would slash $100 million in U.S. military aid to Egypt unless it increases security cooperation with Israel.

In 2008, Egypt reported numerous arrests or seizures of arms shipments to the Gaza Strip. The Mubarak regime has cited troop restrictions in the eastern Sinai for the failure to block weapons smuggling to the Gaza Strip.

"The Egyptians sometimes publicize that smugglers were arrested," an official said. "But we know of nobody who has been prosecuted, convicted or sentenced. This suggests that the arrests are bogus."


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