JERUSALEM: Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was in Israel on Sunday to meet with top officials during a low-profile visit to the Jewish state, an Israeli official said.
Suleiman met Defence Minister Ehud Barak in his Tel Aviv office and was also due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign spy service, according to the official.
Barak’s office said in a statement that the talks focused on “ways to deal with the regional threats and challenges which both countries face, referring mainly to Iran.
The two also discussed ways to renew Middle East peace talks.
Suleiman is Egypt’s pointman for indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas movement on a prisoner exchange of some 1,000 jailed Palestinians for an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants in 2006.
The visit comes a day after Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit implicitly confirmed that his country was building an underground barrier with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in a new bid to prevent smuggling through tunnels.
A network of tunnels beneath the Egypt-Gaza border provide a crucial economic lifeline to Gaza, which has been sealed off from all but vital humanitarian aid by Israel and Egypt since Hamas took over in June 2007.
The tunnels are mainly used for supplying food, fuel and electronic appliances to the beleaguered territory, but Israel has accused Hamas of using the tunnels to rearm following a devastating Gaza war a year ago. -AFP
