As a follow up to this story, we have yet another story about how the Palestinian terrorist groups have been very busy smuggling weapons into Gaza and the West Bank from Egypt. Notice that Hezbollah is listed as one of the involved terror organizations, though Hezbollah claims to not be involved in anti-Israeli terrorism. It does not seem to me like the tenuous “hudna” that is now in place is going to last much longer.
Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas have intensified their efforts to smuggle weapons from Egypt to cells operating in the territories, with the increasing involvement of Negev Beduin, according to details from an internal Shin Bet document obtained by The Jerusalem Post.
The document revealed that between July and February, 180 anti-tank rockets, five anti-aircraft missiles, 600 kilograms of explosives, 3,000 rifles, 400 handguns and 400,000 rounds of ammunition were smuggled from Egypt into the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Terror groups abroad have intensified their efforts in recent months, and one of the main routes used by weapons smugglers starts in the Sinai and from there continues to the Negev and into the West Bank and Gaza,” a security official said.
Security officials said they expected Egypt to take more effective action to combat such smuggling, especially following the understandings reached at the Sharm e-Sheikh summit at which it promised to crack down on such activities.
In January, security forces arrested six weapons smugglers, four from the Negev and two from Gaza. In February, the court sentenced one of the Negev smugglers, Salem Abu Jawad, to 15 years in prison.
Two incidents mentioned in the document related to the arrest of two Beduin by security forces last March. They were caught attempting to smuggle a large number of Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition and rocket propelled grenades into the Negev.
In another incident, a Beduin and a Palestinian were arrested attempting to smuggle stolen weapons to terror groups in Hebron and Tulkarm.
To serve as a deterrent to the rising trend, security officials and the Justice Ministry changed the status of weapons smuggling suspects from criminals to security prisoners, which means they will have harsher conditions.
One of the main pipelines into the Gaza Strip is via tunnels between the Egyptian side of Rafah and the Palestinian side.
Another route is by sea. Last December, Afik Bakker, a Gaza fisherman arrested by security forces, admitted that he had smuggled weapons by hiding them in fishing boats. He admitted to smuggling 100 Kalashnikov rifles and 10 suitcases, each containing 20 kilograms of explosives. He smuggled some of the rifles into Gaza from El-Arish in Sinai
