Hamas-Egypt relations worry Israel
Egypt has suspended construction of an underground steel wall along the Egypt-Gaza border that it had been building over the past year in an effort to stop smuggling weaponry through tunnels into the Gaza Strip, defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the officials, Egypt suspended construction of the underground barrier following the revolution in the country in February which toppled Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Egypt began building the underground barrier in late 2009 to a depth of about 20 meters and along 10 kilometers of the border, where most of the hundreds of smuggling tunnels which serve as Hamas’s main conduit for weapons are located. While smugglers succeeded in breaching the wall in some parts, Israeli officials said that it had been partly effective in places where it was built by making it more difficult for smugglers to dig tunnels across the border.
Israel has not lodged an official complaint with the new Egyptian government led by Defense Minister Muhammad Tantawi, but has urged Cairo to continue the previous government’s tough position on smuggling and to work to take action to prevent the flow of arms to the Gaza Strip.