JERUSALEM: Egypt can end arms smuggling from its territory into the Gaza Strip, top Israeli defense ministry official and negotiator Amos Gilad said on Saturday.
Israel considers that Egypt is in a position to confront the matter of arms smuggling and to put an end to it, Gilad told Channel Two television, adding that the country’s willingness to work against arms-smuggling is unprecedented.
The Egyptians understand that Hamas is a threat not only to Israel but to them as well. Hamas is working in concert with (the Egyptian opposition movement) the Muslim Brotherhood and with Iran, he added.
Gilad, a reserve general in the Israeli arm and political advisor to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, discussed the matter in Cairo on Thursday with Egypt s intelligence chief, General Omar Suleiman.
On Sunday, Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire in its three-week war on Hamas, which it said was aimed at putting an end to rocket fire from densely populated Gaza on the south of the country and to end the arms smuggling.
On January 6, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak proposed terms for a ceasefire that would include putting an end to smuggling through tunnels linking Egypt and Gaza.
Gilad has been meeting with the Egyptians in an effort to underpin the ceasefire in a war that cost the lives of more than 1,300 Palestinians and of 13 Israelis.
Separately, Gilad echoed another senior official s comments that the war had improved the prospects for freeing Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas and other militants in 2006.
The Israeli offensive has created new opportunities for obtaining his liberation, Gilad said, without elaborating.
Earlier, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai had said the operation created basic conditions that will allow us to approach the discussions differently … I hope that this operation has helped us. -AFP
