- 2 oct 2010
Egypt destroys four Gaza smuggling tunnels
Egypt has said it destroyed over 20 tunnels in September alone along its 11-kilometer-long border with the enclosed enclave.
Egyptian security forces have destroyed four tunnels leading across the border to the Gaza Strip, one of them large enough to smuggle cars, officials said Saturday.
The tunnels were being used to smuggle essential goods, petrol and cars into the blockaded enclave, according to authorities.
Egypt has said it destroyed over 20 tunnels in September alone along its 11-kilometre-long border with the Palestinian territory, as part of its most recent effort to clamp down on smuggling.
In addition to providing a lifeline for the 1.5 million inhabitants of the enclave, the tunnels are believed to be used to transport weapons for militants.
Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip was tightened after Hamas took control of the territory in 2007.
The Egyptian government has faced domestic criticism for its destruction of tunnels and its partial blockade on Gaza. However, after Israel violently prevented an aid flotilla from reaching Gaza, Egypt lifted some of the restrictions at its Rafah border crossing, allowing entry to Palestinians needing medical attention, and pilgrims.
http://bit.ly/9d1DHK
30 jan 2011, 01:42 , Respect -
Maria 5 oct 2010
Abbas, Mubarak discuss Mideast talks
Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas (L ) and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
Acting Palestinian Authority (PA) Chief Mahmoud Abbas has met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the latest round of direct talks on the Middle Eastern conflict.
The two officials met at the presidential palace in Cairo on Tuesday.
The direct negotiations between Israel ad the PA was re-launched in Washington last month but was suspended later on after Israel refused to freeze settlement activities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend the partial 10-month moratorium on the settlement expansion projects which expired at the end of September.
Abbas is also expected to make his final decision about the continuation of the US-backed talks after meeting with Arab ministers in Libya on Friday.
The PA chief had earlier warned that he would withdraw from talks if Netanyahu did not extend the moratorium on Israeli settlement activities.
With the Middle East negotiations floundering, a new survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that two-thirds of the Palestinians are against the continuation of talks.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/145359.html
Two Jordanians tortured in Egyptian jails for assisting Gaza
AMMAN, (PIC)-- Relatives of two Jordanian men in Egyptian detention appealed to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry to take immediate action for their release, saying they suffer from tough conditions and have undergone various forms of torture.
The Jordanian weekly Assabeel newspaper quoted the families of detainees Mohammed Hisham Abu Ghazala and Jum%u2019ah Abdullah Al-Tahla as saying that Egyptian authorities have not set a date for their release despite their term ending and several decisions to release them.
Egyptian security forces arrested Abu Ghazala more than three years ago at a checkpoint in El Arish while he was en route to the Gaza Strip. Tahla was arrested a year and a half back over his contribution to Gaza Strip reconstruction committees after the last Israeli war in 2008.
The families confirmed that the detainees have sustained physical and psychological torture while in detention and have been denied family visits.
Sons of Tahla said violent investigations against their father focused on the whereabouts of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
http://bit.ly/b6CWpV
Mubarak: Failure of talks will lead to terror, violence
PM Netanyahu set to convene "septet" of cabinet meetings to discuss the impasse in peace talks; Abbas and Mubarak to meet in Cairo.
The failure of peace talks will result in widespread violence, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview with the journal of the Egyptian Armed Forces. The report, published Tuesday, included the remarks made by the Egyptian leader to mark the 37th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was in Cairo on Tuesday and set to meet with Mubarak to discuss the latest developments.
In Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly preparing to convene his "septet" of cabinet ministers on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in the direct talks with the Palestinians.
The ministers were reportedly also to discuss Israel's relations with the United States surrounding the renewed building in the West Bank.
In addition to Netanyahu, the septet includes three key Likud ministers, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, Intelligence Agencies Minister Dan Meridor and Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin; and the heads of the coalition's three largest parties Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman from Israel Beiteinu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak from Labor and Interior Minister Eli Yishai from Shas.
Government sources had said in recent days that Netanyahu would not convene the septet the security cabinet to discuss the issue until there was a concrete and detailed proposal on the table for how to overcome the current impasse, but reports on Tuesday indicated that plans had changed.
On Monday, the Prime Minister told the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel and the US are involved in sensitive diplomatic contacts to find a way to continue the direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
In his first public comments on the crisis in the direct talks, resulting from last week's expiration of the 10-month settlement moratorium, Netanyahu said those talks had begun after his government made a number of gestures to relaunch them, including announcing the settlement freeze last November.
Jews living in Judea and Samaria have been under an unjust attack now for nearly half a century, Netanyahu said.
They deserve to live normal lives like every other citizen, and that is our policy to ensure that they can live normal lives.
The prime minister said that despite all the difficulties, his government had lived up to its commitments regarding the construction moratorium.
Now we have an interest in continuing the peace negotiations, he said. That is a vital interest for Israel. We are currently in the midst of sensitive diplomatic contacts with the American administration in order to find a solution that will make possible a continuation of the talks.
Netanyahu did not reveal anything about those talks, or what was being discussed, and said this was not the time to make declarations. We are not looking to cause an uproar, and I do not have the possibility of denying every baseless report published in the media.
The London-based newspaper Asharq Alawsat reported Monday that Netanyahu had agreed in principle to extend the moratorium by two months, in exchange for an incentive basket from the US including military hardware, promises of political support, and assurances that in any agreement, Israel would as Netanyahu has demanded be able to keep troops stationed on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state to prevent arms smuggling.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=190241
1 feb 2011, 21:39 , Respect -
Maria 17 oct 2010
'Egypt blacklists Gaza-bound activists'
Egypt plans to bar more than a dozen pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country with the new Gaza-bound humanitarian aid convoy, Viva Palestina.
A Press TV correspondent reported on Saturday that the 17 activists would not be allowed to cross the Egyptian border despite Cairo's decision to greenlight the convoy's arrival in the Mediterranean port of al-Arish.
The names of the activists and the reason behind their ban have not been announced yet, the correspondent said, adding that talks are under way with the Egyptian authorities to resolve the issue.
The aid mission, nicknamed 'Lifeline 5', intends to deliver basic humanitarian supplies to impoverished people of blockaded Gaza Strip. One of the convoy's organizers is former British lawmaker George Galloway.
The convoy seeks to pierce the Israeli siege imposed on the densely-populated coastal sliver since mid-June 2007. The blockade deprives the enclave's 1.5 million residents of food, fuel and other necessities.
The convoy includes around 148 vehicles accompanied by 380 activists from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania, loaded with five million dollars worth of humanitarian aid.
The aid convoy is expected to leave the Syrian port city of Latakia late on Monday.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/147045.html
3 feb 2011, 09:10 , Respect -
Maria 18 oct 2010
Egypt seizes Gaza-bound weapons
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian security forces seized weapons, explosives and cars destined for Gaza in the border town of Rafah on Monday, a security source told Ma'an.
The source said forces received a tip-off that smugglers were preparing to transfer the arms into Gaza through the tunnel complex in the Sarsuriya area, sending a force of armored vehicles and police dogs to locate the cache.
Among the arms discovered were machine guns, ammunition, grenades, safety vests, landmines as well as 150 kilograms of TNT, the source said.
Forces also located three smuggling tunnels, one of which was large enough for the transfer of cars. The other two tunnels were used to transfer goods.
The source said Egyptian security has discovered 580 tunnels since the beginning of 2010, including 16 for car smuggling. Egypt has launched a crackdown on weapons smuggling from the border area in recent months, seizing a number of weapons caches containing explosives.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=325185
3 feb 2011, 19:26 , Respect -
Maria 21 oct 2010
Palestinians fear more serious stage of Egyptian steel wall
GAZA, (PIC)-- A giant crane in Egypt near the Salahuddin Gate on the Gaza-Egypt border is steadily embedding giant steel plates into the earth, even though Palestinians can penetrate the plates. But authorities have a hidden agenda behind the massive sheets.
The Egyptian steel wall project funded by the U.S. has neared its end as five centimeter thick, 20 meter deep, and 11 km long steel plates split the Egyptian city of Rafah from its sister city in Palestine.
Rafah mayor Issa Al Nashar said Egyptian authorities have been working night and day since early October to plant the steel plates under the Salahuddin area, the only region where the steel wall has not yet been erected.
Nashar told Quds Press: When Egypt began building the steel wall, the border was divided into three stages, and it is now in the last stage, and we believe they will finish at the end of the year at the latest.
Expressing concern over another stage to come after the wall is posted, the mayor said: If they carry out the project to pump Mediterranean Sea water under ground on the border, it will have disastrous effects not only on the tunnels, but on the underground water and life in the Gaza Strip in general.
As the last stage of the wall approaches, Palestinian experts fear Egyptian authorities will pump water from the Mediterranean through horizontal plastic pipes which will transport the water to perforated metal pipes stretching more than ten meters into the earth, where the water will be irrigated to loosened soil, and tens or possibly hundreds of tunnels will collapse.
The pipes have been embedded in parallel with the steel wall which will acts as a buffer to prevent the salt water from leaking into the Egyptian side of the border, according to one Palestinian security official and several tunnel owners.
A Palestinian official, preferring anonymity, told Quds Press: The danger is not in the wall's construction, but in the stages that follow that.
The project to pump the Mediterranean Sea water is more serious, because it will cause destruction to most of the tunnels, he added.
The official went on to say that Egyptian authorities are expected to kick off the water pumping project early next year.
http://bit.ly/bg0Rm6
4 feb 2011, 11:28 , Respect -
Maria 28 oct 2010
Bardawil: We hope to see Egypt support the Palestinian position against Israel
GAZA, (PIC)-- Senior Hamas official and lawmaker Salah Al-Bardawil expressed his Movement's hope that the visit paid by Egypt's foreign minister and intelligence director to Ramallah city and Jordan would aim at supporting the Palestinian position in the face of the Israeli occupation.
"What we hope that the Arabs and Egypt in particular would have positions in support of the Palestinian one, especially since the enemy does not target the Palestinians alone, but also the whole Arab nation, particularly Egypt," Bardawil said in a press statement to Quds Press on Thursday.
Official media outlets in Egypt reported that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak designated his foreign minister Ahmed Abu Al-Gheit and intelligence director Omar Suleiman to hand two messages, one to the Jordanian king and the other to the de facto president of the Palestinian authority.
The letters are related to Egypt's assessment of the situation in the region and the negotiation process as well as the issue of the national reconciliation in the Palestinian arena.
http://bit.ly/a52fH0
5 feb 2011, 02:17 , Respect -
Maria 3 nov 2010
Egyptian authorities restrict travel of Gaza poet
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Egyptian authorities prevented a Gaza poet from traveling to a poetry competition in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Suleiman Al-Hazeen, from An-Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip district of Deir Al-Balah, was accepted to be one of 7,000 contestants in the "Prince of Poets" competition hosted by the Gulf state.
Al-Hazeen told Ma'an that he attempted to cross the Gaza-Egypt border twice to get to the contest, but he was denied both times on the grounds of security concerns.
According to competition organizers in Abu Dhabi, Al-Hazeen was also invited and denied entry in 2008.
Suleiman, who previously worked with Palestine TV, said he had no political affiliation, and had been looking forward to participating in the competition.
"Prince of Poets" was a competition started in 2007 by the Poetry Academy in the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. Organizers told the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Khaleej Times that the deadline for applications had been extended by one month so judges screening the tens of thousands of applications could get through the material.
Millions of viewers were expected to follow the competition, aired on Abu Dhabi TV. The program was said to have revitalized popular interest in classical Arab poetry, while organizers call it a strategy to boost the status of Abu Dhabi as a cultural hub.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330505
6 feb 2011, 18:47 , Respect -
Maria 4 nov 2010
Egypt shuts down tunnels along Gaza border
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Egyptian security forces took over 16 tunnels and quantities of smuggled goods on Thursday.
During the operation, a suspected Egyptian smuggler was seized in possession of weapons in the Rafah border area, officials said.
Intelligence officials said iron and food were among the supplies seized en route to the besieged coastal enclave.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330771
7 feb 2011, 12:55 , Respect -
Maria 7 nov 2010
Egyptian minister slams Israel's Sinai travel advisories
Egyptian Tourism Minister Zuhair Garana accused Israel of purposely trying to scare tourists away from the Sinai Peninsula by issuing travel advisories to Israeli citizens warning of terror threats in the Egyptian vacation destination. Zuhair's comments came in an interview with Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yom, published on Sunday.
Garana dismissed the frequent travel advisories, saying "people in the world know when to take the warnings seriously and when not to."
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=194315
10 feb 2011, 11:13 , Respect -
Maria 10 nov 2010
Behind an Israeli Strike in Gaza, Help from Egypt
The scene of a blast in which senior Palestinian commander from an Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist group in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Jamal Namnam, 25, was killed.
The Nov. 3 assassination of Mohammad Namnam looked pretty much exactly like the fiery deaths of a lot of other Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip over the years. He was making his way in broad daylight through the tattered streets of Gaza City when his sedan turned into a fireball. The missile arrived from an Israeli helicopter hovering so far away that onlookers at first thought the explosion was a car bomb.
The death was not routine, however. Israel has refrained for months from assassination by missile, just as Hamas, the fundamentalist militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, has held back from launching homemade rockets into Israel. And the dead man was a senior operative not of Hamas but of another, more extreme militia called the Army of Islam. Namnam, a senior commander of the group some analysts describe as linked to al-Qaeda, was tracked and killed after Israeli security operatives learned that he was preparing a terror attack on U.S. forces stationed in the Sinai Desert not far from coastal Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas.
(What's behind Gaza's siege mentality?) http://bit.ly/ctlaXi
But the most striking element of the operation was the source of the tip: Egyptian intelligence gleaned news of the plot from Army of Islam operatives captured earlier in the Sinai. Egyptian security forces work to interdict arms and explosives on smuggling routes that run across the vast expanse from Sudan to Gaza. But sharing the intelligence on Namnam with their Israeli counterparts marked a level of Egyptian cooperation not seen by the Jewish state in years. "Egypt is helping much more," a security source in the region tells TIME.
(See Gaza's police force, between Hamas and a hard place.) http://bit.ly/cD0u4V
This being the Middle East, the explanation involves a blend of shared interests and revenge. Sources familiar with the operation credited the change in Egypt's posture to President Hosni Mubarak's anger at another enemy of Israel, Hizballah, the Shi'a militia based in Lebanon. Last year Egyptian state media announced that 49 Hizballah agents were arrested in Sinai for plotting against Egypt. "They bought apartments near the Suez, speedboats, cars," says the security source. "They built a very big infrastructure around not only Gaza smuggling but also targeting Sinai tourism." Mubarak, incensed, issued a public warning to Hizballah, Hamas and their main state sponsors, Syria and Iran. "We will uncover their plot," the president proclaimed. "Beware of Egypt's wrath."
Egypt and Israel have maintained diplomatic relations since signing a peace treaty in 1979. That treaty returned to Egypt the Sinai peninsula that Israel had captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. It also put in place the multinational force charged with monitoring the desert from a string of outposts and two bases. The Army of Islam plot was aimed at the northern base, called El Gorah, about a dozen miles west of Gaza, apparently hoping to kill Americans. U.S. forces account for almost 700 of the approximately 1,600 military personnel assigned to the Multnational Force and Observers (MFO). Normand St. Pierre, head of the MFO office in Cairo, says Israel and Egypt share responsibility for the forces' security. "The relationship between the countries is really up to them, and I think they know things work better when they cooperate," St. Pierre told TIME, adding that he knew of no specific threat to El Gorah.
(See how ruling Gaza is an awkward balancing act for Hamas.) http://bit.ly/d15iDT
Israeli sources offered no specifics either, though in announcing the strike on Namnam an Israeli Defense Forces spokesman described him as a "ticking bomb." The dead man was 27, lived in the Shati refugee camp, and was an aide to Mumtaz Dughmush, the leader of a Gaza clan and commander of the Army of Islam. On the spectrum of militant Islam, the group is described as closer to al-Qaeda than to Hamas, which has both embraced and punished the rival. In 2006, Hamas and the Army of Islam cooperated on the capture of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier still held in Gaza. But after Hamas took power of the coastal strip in 2007 it launched an attack against the group, and news reports said Namnam was recently called on the carpet by Hamas for firing rockets into Israel. Hamas suspended rocket attacks after Israel's devastating December 2008 military incursion, which killed more than 700 of its fighters, and a similar number of civilians.
(Comment on this story.)
Israeli officials claimed that Hamas was again cooperating with the Army of Islam in the alleged plot against U.S. forces in the Sinai, but offered no evidence to support the allegation.
See photos of Hamas recruitment day. http://bit.ly/bzBQo0
See pictures of 60 years of Israel. http://bit.ly/c5uv2z
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2030671,00.html
Egyptian Flags Made In Israel
An Egyptian paper reported that it managed to obtain documents from the Egyptian ministry of Trade and Finance revealing that a number of Egyptian businessmen imported Egyptian flags that were made in Israel.
The al-Masry al-Youm (The Egyptian Today) reported that large number of flags were imported from Israel, and that they likely got into Egypt through Taba, Rafah and al-Oja Border Terminals.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian Customs Authority stated that there is no official ban on imports from Israel.
Egyptian Trade and Industry Minister, Rashed Mohammad Rashed, said that the issue in question in only based on rumors.
The Minister's advisor, al-Sayyid Abu al-Qomsan, said that the Egyptian Customs Authority did not receive any recent shipment of Egyptian flags.
The issues was brought to the Egyptian Parliament in July this year by MP Abbas Abdul-Aziz who said that he is 100% sure of his statement, and that he is in possession of documents that support his claim.
http://www.imemc.org/article/59888
10 feb 2011, 11:25 , Respect -
Maria 11 nov 2010
Report: Egypt 'tipped' Israel on terrorist
Time magazine says information provided by Cairo led Jewish state to assassinate Army of Islam commander who planned to target US forces in Sinai.
WASHINGTON %u2013 Egypt helped Israel assassinate Muhammad Jamal al-Namnam, a senior member of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Army of Islam organization, Time magazine reported Thursday.
The terrorist, who carried out attacks against Israel in the past and planned to target Israelis and Americans in Sinai, was killed last week after his car exploded in Gaza City.
According to Time, the missile which hit the car arrived from an Israeli helicopter, and the death was not routine. Israel has refrained for months from targeted killings from the air as long as Hamas has held back from firing rockets into Israel.
Namnam was tracked and killed, Time said, after Israeli security officials learned that he was preparing a terror attack on US forces stationed in the Sinai Desert.
According to Time, the information on Namnam's plans was received from Cairo after Egyptian intelligence learned of the plot from Army of Islam operatives captured in Sinai earlier during a routine operation to interdict arms and explosives on smuggling routes that run across the vast expanse from Sudan to Gaza.
The multinational force operating near the Gaza Strip is comprised of 1,600 soldiers %u2013 700 of them American. According to Time, the Army of Islam plot was aimed at a base located about a dozen miles west of Gaza.
Sharing the intelligence on Namnam with their Israeli counterparts marks a level of Egyptian cooperation not seen by the Jewish state in years, Time said. "Egypt is helping much more," a security source in the region told the magazine.
The change in the Egyptian approach is related to the uncovering of a Hezbollah terror cell in Sinai. "They bought apartments near the Suez, speedboats, cars," a security source told Time. "They built a very big infrastructure around not only Gaza smuggling but also targeting Sinai tourism."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak feared that this infrastructure may be used in the future to bring down his regime.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3982996,00.html
11 feb 2011, 10:37 , Respect -
Maria 12 nov 2010
Report: Egypt fears terrorists infiltrated Gaza
Day after Israel issues Sinai travel warning, Palestinian news agency says Egyptian security forces have raised level of alert along border with Strip, fearing group of seven men has managed to enter Gaza in bid to carry out attacks against Israel.
Egypt's security forces have raised their level of alert in the Sinai peninsula and along the border with Gaza for fear that a group of seven terrorists has managed to infiltrate the Strip in order to carry out an attack against Israel, Palestinian news agency Maan reported Friday evening.
According to the report, the seven men are affiliated with a radical Islamic organization and are linked to the 25 activists arrested in the peninsula over the past week.
An Egyptian security source told the news agency that the seven wanted men may have already infiltrated Gaza. According to the report, one of the cell members is suspected of being involved in the firing of rockets from Egypt to Eilat and Aqaba three months ago.
The seven terrorists, the report said, were held by Egypt's security forces up until three months ago. After their release they resumed their "religious and political" activity and set up a new cell. They traveled to northern Sinai, where they asked one of their friends to help them infiltrate the Gaza Strip through an underground tunnel in order to join the Palestinian factions.
The Counter-Terrorism Bureau on Thursday urged Israelis to leave Egypt's Sinai Peninsula at once and return to Israel. The grave advisory also called on the relatives of Israelis in Sinai to contact them and update them about the warning.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office warned Israelis that up-to-date, credible information elicited by security authorities shows that a cell belonging to the Army of Islam group, affiliated with Global Jihad organizations, is in Sinai at this time in order to abduct Israelis.
Against the backdrop of this intelligence information, the IDF last week assassinated in Gaza a member of the group involved in planning the attack.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3983714,00.html
11 feb 2011, 14:17 , Respect -
Maria 13 nov 2010
Egypt frees arrested opposition election candidates
CAIRO (AFP) -- Three Muslim Brotherhood candidates in Egypt's 28 November legislative election who were arrested earlier this week have been released, a judiciary official said on Saturday.
Another 44 members of the group will appear in court charged with the illegal use of religious slogans while campaigning.
The official said 16 Brotherhood members arrested in the port city of Ismailia will be charged with membership of an illegal organisation and using the slogan "Islam is the solution," which is banned under electoral law.
A Brotherhood official said 28 of the group's members detained in Sharqiya face the same charges.
All 44 are expected to be freed on bail ahead of court hearings on 20, 21 and 23 November.
The judicial source said the three freed candidates, who had been detained in Ismailia, were released on bail to appear in court at a later date charged with assaulting police officers.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which controls a fifth of the current parliament, is the country's largest opposition movement, despite a ban on religious parties. It registers its candidates as independents.
It plans to contest 134 out of the 508 seats up for election at the end of the month.
The group has accused the government of arresting dozens of its members ahead of polling day.
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333603
Governor: Israel trying to harm tourism
Northern Sinai's governor says Israel has been publishing false terror warnings since 2004 attacks in order to wreak havoc on Egyptian economy. Meanwhile, Nuweiba mayor says 40% of tourists currently in Sinai are Israeli.
The governor of northern Sinai rejected an anti-terror warning Saturday morning, urging Israelis to visit the popular tourist sites in the Egyptian peninsula.
Abdel Fadil Shusha said the warning published by Israel Thursday was an attempt by the state to harm Egypt's economy. He added that the Israeli government had been publishing such warnings during Egyptian holidays ever since the attacks in Taba and Nuweiba in 2004.
But Al-Arabi al-Husseini, head of the Nuweiba and Taba city council, reported that Israeli tourists were not heeding the warning in any case, and that not a single one has left Sinai at the state's behest.
Al-Husseini said Sinai's bungalows are currently full to 70% capacity, and hotels to 90%. Of the tourists staying in Sinai, 40% are Israeli, he added.
The Counter-Terrorism Bureau urged Israelis on Thursday to leave Sinai at once and return to the country. The grave advisory also urged the relatives of Israelis in Sinai to contact them and update them about the warning.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office Thursday evening warned Israelis that up-to-date, credible information elicited by security authorities shows that a cell belonging to the Army of Islam group, affiliated with Global Jihad organizations, is in Sinai at this time in order to abduct Israelis.
Meanwhile, Egyptian security officials said that authorities detained some 25 jihadists in recent days. The sources told Palestinian news agency Ma'an that the radical Islamists were planning to target peace-keeping forces in the Sinai as well as Israeli tourists.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3983795,00.html
Egyptian intel says 7 militants entered Gaza
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma'an) -- Egyptian state security raised its level of alert in the Sinai Peninsula Friday, with a focus along the country's border with Gaza during a failed arrest campaign for seven militants believed to have infiltrated into the Strip overnight.
One of the suspects, all former political and religious activists from the northern Egyptian city of Marsa Matrouh 450 kilometers west of Alexandria, was suspected of involvement in shell launches from the northern Sinai in August and landed in the Red Sea ports of Aqaba and Eilat, killing one Jordanian taxi driver and causing some damage in Israel.
Egyptian security officials told Ma'an that some of the men had been detained during the investigation of the incident, but were released in September.
The group was said to have re-formed following the height of investigations around the summer shelling, and according to an official, all were headed to the northern Sinai to meet an eighth man who they had been introduced to while in Egyptian custody. The eighth man was allegedly asked to help the group infiltrate into Gaza through smuggling tunnels.
According to the intelligence officials, from Gaza the group was preparing to launch an attack on Israeli targets.
In an effort to learn more about the plans of the group, a man they visited en route to Rafah, in the border-area town of Sheikh Zuwayid, was detained and taken in for questioning.
Israel issued a high-level travel warning for its citizens in the northern Sinai the week earlier.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333412
11 feb 2011, 18:13 , Respect -
Maria 14 nov 2010
Official: Egypt not doing enough to stop smuggling
Intelligence official says Hamas now has rockets with 80-km range, putting Tel Aviv at risk of attack.
A senior Israeli intelligence official says Hamas has rockets with a range of 80 kilometers, putting the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv within range of its launchers.
The official blames Egypt, saying it is not doing enough to stem smuggling through a network of tunnels along the relatively short border between its Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip. The official said most of the tunnels were concentrated in an area no longer than 4 kilometers.
"Egypt can stop all this smuggling of weapons within 24 hours if they want to do it," the official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity under Israeli security regulations.
The official said, however, that intelligence cooperation with Egypt was otherwise effective.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3984495,00.html
12 feb 2011, 10:41 , Respect -
Maria 15 nov 2010
Israel to start building fence along Egyptian borders in two weeks
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israel announced that building the fence along the borders with Egypt would start within two weeks with the aim of barring "infiltration into Israel".
Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu said that the construction of the fence was a national duty to preserve "Israel's security".
Netanyahu was speaking on Sunday during an official memorial service commemorating the 37th anniversary of former premier David Ben Gurion's death.
http://bit.ly/aoY4cl
Egypt denies it has prior idea about US stimulus package for Israel
CAIRO, (PIC)-- Egypt's foreign ministry denied it was informed previously about the stimulus package deal offered by the American administration to Israel in exchange for a three-month settlement freeze in the West Bank.
"Egypt does not see that Israel's freeze of settlement activities in the West Bank is an end in itself that entails paying high prices for it in return," spokesman for the ministry Hosam Zaki stated in a news conference on Sunday.
"The freeze we need should stem mainly from the Israeli government's awareness of its responsibilities and obligations towards the establishment of peace and not be turned into a bargaining chip that spoils the negotiation process before it begins," spokesman Zaki added.
The spokesman stressed that the settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories including east Jerusalem are illegal and totally violate international law, adding that Egypt cannot accept at all such political maneuvers that are aimed at maintaining or legitimizing settlement activities.
According to this US-Israeli deal, settlement construction will be frozen for three months in the West Bank excluding east Jerusalem in exchange for American political and security pledges and incentives.
http://bit.ly/a2cm7p