Posted on 09/15/2005 5:36:40 AM PDT by SJackson
Border Policemen and Israel Defense Forces trackers in the southern Negev region early Thursday morning arrested 20 Palestinians residents of the Gaza Strip attempting to infiltrate into Israel along the border with Egypt.
The Palestinians, who were arrested in three different incidents, said they exited the Strip through the Philadelphi route which borders with Egypt, and where Palestinians have been able to cross unhindered in and out of Egypt since Israel completed its withdrawal from Gaza.
The arrested men were taken for police questioning to establish whether they wished to enter Israel in order to carry out terror attacks. IDF officials said they expected this phenomenon of Palestinian infiltrations from the Sinai into Israel to repeat itself and widen
Israel fears unfettered Al-Qaida infiltration
The collapse of the Gaza-Egyptian border in the three days since Israel withdrew from the Strip, which has allowed thousands of Palestinians to enter Sinai and numerous Egyptians to enter Gaza, is extremely worrisome to Jerusalem. Israel is fearful not only of massive arms smuggling into Gaza, and consequently to the West Bank, but also, and particularly, that Al-Qaida operatives will be able to enter Gaza freely.
In addition, Israeli intelligence officials say Palestinian terror organizations have been making a concerted effort in the last few days to smuggle as many weapons as they can into the Gaza Strip via the breached border with Egypt, which wanted Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists have been crossing freely.
The border collapse, caused by Egypt's failure to maintain even minimal supervision over the crossing, is occurring at a time when Egypt is having trouble eliminating Al-Qaida cells in the Sinai. Thus far, Al-Qaida operatives have failed to infiltrate Israel, but Jerusalem fears that now the organization will renew its efforts to send operatives from Sinai into Gaza, and after that to the West Bank. This will be hard to prevent without Egyptian and Jordanian cooperation.
Palestinian and Egyptian officials promised on Wednesday to act immediately to close the border. After they failed to stop people from crossing at 6 P.M., as planned, they announced they would close the border at midnight Wednesday. However, Palestinian officials said Wednesday it would take at least another few days before Egyptian and Palestinian authorities could begin to halt the unauthorized crossings.
In addition to helping Palestinian families reunite, the opening also made it easier for militants to smuggle weapons into Gaza. The militants succeeded in keeping Palestinian police officers away from the Philadelphi route on Wednesday, and the Palestinian security services did nothing to stop the Hamas men from blasting through the wall.
Egyptian security forces announced Wednesday they had discovered and destroyed a tunnel near Rafah in which they found hundreds of rifles and hand grenades and several anti-tank rocket launchers. The tunnel was apparently discovered as it was being used to smuggle weapons into Gaza.
"All the terror organizations are working energetically now," an IDF source said. "The goal is to bring in large quantities of weapons before the Egyptians close the breach."
The chaos at the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been underway since the IDF completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on Monday, raises the question of the effectiveness of the agreement Israel and Egypt signed regarding the deployment of 750 Egyptian border guards along the Philadelphi route in an effort to prevent arms-smuggling.
By the time the Egyptians begin to act efficiently, a large quantity of weapons will have been smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai. The Palestinian terror organizations have been stockpiling a large supply of weapons in Sinai over the last few months, since the IDF's anti-smuggling operations were making it difficult for them to get the weapons over the border.
Israeli intelligence officials do not yet have confirmed information on the critical question of whether the Palestinians have brought weapons into Gaza that would alter the current balance, such as relatively long-range anti-aircraft missiles and Katyusha rockets. Such missiles could diminish the control of IDF planes and drones over Gaza's air space, and Katyushas would bring more Israeli towns in the northern and western Negev within range of rocket fire.
The IDF said Wednesday that at the moment the 14 kilometers of the Philadelphi route are a "black hole" through which weapons are pouring into Gaza. In addition, some militants who have stayed out of Gaza for fear of being arrested by Israeli security forces are now heading back in. Israeli officials are worried about some of the Palestinians, including wanted men, who have been crossing the border into Sinai. Israel fears that some will try to use what is being called the "living route" and continue south into Sinai, from where they can infiltrate into Israel in areas where there is no fence between Egyptian territory and the Negev, in an effort to carry out terror attacks in Israel.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz called on the Palestinian Authority and Egypt to take control of the border zone.
"It's desirable for the PA to regain its composure and immediately do what it is supposed to do to impose law and order in the Strip," Mofaz said Wednesday. Israel has given "very firm warnings" to the PA and Egypt regarding the lack of supervision of the cross-border movement along the Philadelphi route. Mofaz said he "believes and hopes that the Egyptians will deal with the situation that has arisen, together with the Palestinian security forces."
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Its my understanding that there has been a series of tunnels along the Egypt-Gaza border for years, for the intent of smuggling arms.
Israelshould quit importing Pali workers; then there is no reason for them to cross the border. Seal them in.
Can I buy a space?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if their focus shifts to Israel from Iraq. They are losing big time against us, they have a recent "victory" in Israel. Look for a huge infux from Egypt.
That's what you wanted thats what you'll get!
Sharon will get what he paid for in more spilled BLOOD.
Oh he might then do a full attack on the PA etal afterwards, though I doubt it, but look at the costs over the decades.
The palestinians won't change, but it makes an excellent staging area for al Qaida. Arms have been flowing freely over the border with Egypt, as have terrorists. If Fatah and Hamas can resist staging attacks from Gaza, rather concentrate on the West Bank, al Qaida has a safe haven to operate from amidst a sympathetic population.
With aggressive interdiction on the Gaza side by the IDF. That's gone now. Presuming Egypt (and the US, we're a treaty signatory) looks the other way, as they have for years, it'll be an open border in at least the one direction.
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