EL-ARISH: Egyptian police arrested 22 people suspected of involvement in smuggling goods into the Gaza Strip as part of major crackdown launched earlier this week, a security official said on Friday.
The men were arrested as part of a large police operation that was launched on Wednesday in Rafah and Sheikh Zwayed, in North Sinai, according to the official.
Hundreds of security personnel searched houses, carried out checks at roadblocks and scoured the border area.
A large quantity of goods were seized in the operation, the official added, including spare parts for motor vehicles, clothes, cans of food and electric water pumps.
The people arrested “are suspected of being implicated in the smuggling operations to supply Gaza through the tunnels that run beneath Egypt’s border with Gaza.
Cairo recently stepped up its controversial fight against smuggling into Gaza by land and sea, under pressure from Israel and the United States, to prevent the Palestinian enclave being supplied with arms.
The impoverished territory of 1.5 million people has largely relied on the vast network of tunnels on the border since Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza off to all but vital aid after Hamas seized power in June 2007.
Last year, Egypt began work on an underground barrier in a new bid to tighten its porous Sinai border with the restive Palestinian territory. -AFP
