Report: Egypt working to create buffer zone around Gaza border

As part of new campaign to create buffer zone around Gaza, Egypt military forces launch Sinai operation, destroying tunnels, homes, and raiding villages serving terrorists, Palestinian news agency reports

Roi Kais, INN

Egyptian border forces destroyed tunnels leading into Gaza from Sinai as part of new campaign to create a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported.

Egyptian outpost near Rafah crossing with Gaza (Photo: AFP)
Egyptian outpost near Rafah crossing with Gaza (Photo: AFP)

According to the report, 10 tunnels and seven homes were destroyed on Saturday as part of the new plan to create the buffer zone, which would extend 500 meters in some places, the report claimed.

According to Ma’an report which cited an Egyptian security source, the campaign began with a military operation in the border town of Rafah, where tunnels leading into Gaza were targeted.

The security source added that the tunnels were destroyed and the homes they were located in were subsequently blown up.

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He explained that the move was part of a wider campaign being led by Egypt to set up a buffer zone along the border with Gaza in Rafah that would extend 300 meters in populated areas and 500 meters in open areas.

According to Ma’an, the zone would pose a threat to dozens of Gaza homes, which has been divided by the international border since the 1982 Camp David peace accord between Egypt and Israel.

According to the report, thousands were displaced in the early 2000s when Israel demolished homes to build a similar buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the border with Egypt.

The Egyptian security source also told Ma’an that Egyptian army forces successfully foiled three explosive devices placed in military vehicles and armored cars in Sheikh Zuwaid, including two that were placed near the Sheikh Zuweid Hospital and a third on the road to a nearby village south of Sheikh Zuewid.

Egyptian soldiers in Sinai (Photo: AFP)
Egyptian soldiers in Sinai (Photo: AFP)

The report highlights the rising tensions between Islamist active in Sinai and the Egyptian regieme working to root them out. The tensions have been on the rise since Egypt ousted Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas ‘ sister group.

He added that army forces raided “militant strongholds” in the a Sinai village south of Sheikh Zuweid and destroyed three homes and five “hideouts.”

They also destroyed an olive grove that was reportedly used to hide militants following attacks taking place on the nearby road to Rafah International crossing.

Egyptian armed forces launched large scale military action against terrorists and militants in the Sinai Peninsula earlier in September, in what officials described as the largest mobilization of force in the area since the 1973 Yom Kippur War .

Until July of this year, Ma’an reports, tunnels connecting Gaza to Egypt provided a vital lifeline for the territory which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade which has been in place since 2006.

Since the Morsi’s July ouster, Egypt has strictly enforced its side of the blockade, specifically targeting the illegal tunnels. 

Egyptian Maj. Gen. Ahmad Ibrahim said in October that nearly 800 tunnels had been destroyed since the beginning of the year at that time, while Rafah officials estimated in September that these operations had demolished 95% of previously existing tunnels, Ma’an reported.

February 16, 2014 | 11 Comments »

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11 Comments / 11 Comments

  4. These tunnels reappear as quickly as rabbits reproduce! Some other tech should be used to prevent the reuse of the tunnels. Something like Iranian IEDs perhaps.

  5. I just had an sudden recall of memories from the past as I saw the Egyptian guard towers and patrols. While in South Africa working and getting married almost 40 years ago we visited the Kruger National Park. People were mandated to return to guarded camps for the nights. I recall as if yesterday Sabi and Olifants being our abode for several nights. The camps were protected by stern fences and manned towers against mainly marauding hyenas, baboons, rogue crazy elephants which if left to their own devices would attack anyone about. The guards would, without hesitation, terminate any such animal approaching the camps. The Egyptians appears to also know how to handle such beasts.
    Hamastan packs and other such in Y & S are solely responsive to that procedure.
    Of course using real ammo, no rubber bullets, sponge bullets or paint ball “rifles”.

  6. Score:__Arabs and Persians (3)________________
    _______ America, Europe and Israel (0)________

    Israel uneasy over Russian arms flooding into Syria in the north, Egypt to the south
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

    Putin failed to deliver the goods and Assad continued to wage his hideous war – a double setback for Washington, because White House policy-makers failed to appreciate that Assad and Putin each had their own agendas which were not uniformly in sync.

    A similar relationship may be evolving between Cairo and Damascus.

    This week, Egypt’s future president Defense Minister Gen. El-Sisi was in Moscow to sign a large transaction for the purchase of Russian arms. According to some estimates it is worth $2 billion; others put the figure as high as $3 billion.
    Advanced Russian missiles and warplanes – and most likely S-300 anti-missile batteries – will flow into the Egyptian army’s arsenals for its two interlinked wars on the Muslim Brotherhood, which was outlawed as a terrorist organization after its overthrow from power, and on the al Qaeda jihadists entrenched in Sinai.
    These terrorists are hand in glove with the Brotherhood for striking Egyptian military and government targets and also in close coordination with Al Qaeda elements in Libya.

    Gen. El-Sisi currently treats Israel as a welcome ally, mainly because the Netanyahu government has agreed to overlook key clauses of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in order to give him a free hand in Sinai and supports his campaigns with deep intelligence cooperation.

    But the Egyptian strongman’s is trip to Moscow last week took him a long step away from Washington and an important step closer to Moscow, with incalculable consequences.

    The Egyptian ruler and his following hold to the political orientation briefly summed up as Nasserist. He knows that Egypt’s fundamental economic woes are incurable, and so he is investing effort in building a strong regime that will promote the Nasserist form of pan-Arab nationalism, with Egypt in the forefront.

    This policy may well bring Egypt into collision with the state of Israel, the national manifestation of the Jewish people.

    Therefore, in many ways, the Egyptian strongman is an enigma. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem can foresee exactly where he is heading. The Syrian ruler for his part has confounded the most extreme predictions of how far he is willing to go in his pitiless determination to survive.

    _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    You don’t need S-300 systems for the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda jihadists. Remember when Syria and Egypt were a single country called the United Arab Republic?

    They went to war with Israel twice as the UAR.

    Egypt fought 5 wars with Egypt before Sadat and 3 with Syria under Non-Islamic Rulers but nationalistic pan-Arabists. Al-Sisis and Assad could revive such a pact again.

    I suspect that Egypt welcomes at least partially the insurgency from Sinai as they got Israel to agree to abrogate the main part of the so called Peace agreement with Egypt that being the demilitarization of the Sinai by Egypt. They are now back and I don’t expect they will now leave. (Yamit82) BB is not only a coward he is politically stupid. Israel should have warned Egypt that if they did not deal with the terrorists in Sinai Israel would do it for them under international law and guaranteed by both the USA and the UN. All those Tunnels Egypt claims to be destroyed were allowed to be built by Mubarak who also supported the Hamas in Gaza. How come Egypt can destroy whole neighborhoods along the border creating a no-man’s buffer and the world and the Palis are silent but Israel was afraid to do the same thing on our side? Stupid cowardly Jews!!! Always afraid of what the Goyim will say. How many of our guys were killed because of such freight??

  7. “We don’t want to redivide Jerusalem,” he told 300 Israeli students and young activists at the Muqata, his presidential compound. “We would leave the city open, and have two municipalities with one governing body above them. This is the meaning of coexistence,” he said to raucous applause…..
    During Sunday’s unprecedented meeting of Israel students from across the country, organized by Labor MK Hilik Bar, the chair of the Knesset Caucus for the Promotion of a Solution for the Israeli-Arab Conflict and the One Voice organization,…..

    Read more: Abbas: We don’t want to divide Jerusalem, or flood Israel with refugees | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-we-dont-want-to-divide-jerusalem-or-flood-israel-with-refugees/#ixzz2tV4Vs4QX
    Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

    There is no accounting for Jewish stupidity.

  11. Report: 3 killed, several wounded in Egyptian tourist bus blast in Sinai near Israeli border
    Israeli police say they hear explosion from the Egyptian side of the Taba border crossing; Magen David Adom sends ambulances to the Israeli side of the terminal to receive any casualties; no Israelis believed injured in blast. http://www.timesofisrael.com/

    Bus Explodes Near Eilat

    Read more at:     http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/bus-explodes-near-eilat/2014/02/16/