CAIRO: Egypt and Israel signed an agreement to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip before Israel announced its ceasefire last Saturday, an Israeli official told AFP.
A senior Israeli government official told the news agency that “Israel and Egypt have reached written understandings on security arrangements to prevent arms smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border and deeper inside the Sinai Peninsula.
He added that Egypt had agreed to “specific measures to counter the smuggling on its border with Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had announced an Israeli ceasefire (but not a withdrawal) three hours ahead of time Saturday, boasting that the Jewish state had achieved all of its goals with the offensive on Gaza.
Israel had stated that a major aim for their 22-day offensive on Gaza was to destroy the tunnels beneath the border with Egypt which are used to smuggle essential goods as well as weapons into the strip that has been under siege for 18 months.
Neither Egypt nor Israel have publicly admitted to such a deal, and it is expected that senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad will come to Egypt within the next few days to further discuss ways to prevent the smuggling as well as the possibility of reopening the Gaza crossings.
The supposed agreement was reached before the ceasefire, and was drummed out by IDF negotiator Gilad and Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, who met twice during the Israeli offensive on Gaza.
Israel had previously stated that it had halted its offensive only after securing agreements with Egypt and the United States about putting a stop to the border smuggling.
But Egypt’s foreign minister had dismissed on Saturday a US-Israeli agreement aimed at cutting off weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the US and Israel can “do what they wish with regard to the sea or any other country in Africa, but when it comes to Egyptian land, we are not bound by anything except the safety and national security of the Egyptian people and Egypt’s ability to protect its borders.
“Egypt will never accept any foreign presence of monitors on its land, said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a televised speech Saturday. “I say this is a red line I have not and will not allow to be crossed.
Egypt has repeatedly asked to amend the 1979 Camp David Accords to allow more than the permitted 750 Egyptian troops inside Sinai in order to properly counter smuggling.
Israeli officials told Reuters on Sunday that they were considering giving Egypt the green light to increase their border guard forces along the Rafah border.
The Israeli officials said that they are discussing a proposal submitted by Cairo to increase the number of Egyptian forces in the Sinai to 1,500.
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs hasn’t confirmed the news.
Mohamed Abdel Salam, a military analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said that increasing troop levels along the Rafah border will be in no way sufficient.
“It won’t be enough at all, said Abdel Salam. “We are taking about 14 km of border with 1.5 million people on both sides.
Abdel Salam believes that properly securing the volatile Rafah border won’t come with just increasing the troop levels in the area, but also through cooperation on both sides of the border.
“We [Egypt] have no desire to escalate the current [arms smuggling] situation into a crisis, said Abdel Salam. “We need to have talks with those on the other side of the border and cooperate with them.
However, at the summit for Gaza which took place Sunday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa stressed that eradicating the tunnels – used predominantly for transporting essential goods into the strip – could not occur without lifting the blockade on Gaza.
“Talk of ending the smuggling must not exclude talk of opening the crossings, because the smuggling is a direct result of the blockade. People are desperate for anything by any way, he said. -Additional reporting by Nader Ramadan
