TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Israeli security officials maintain that Egypt is not doing nearly as much as it could do to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip.
According to Israeli intelligence assessments Palestinians are smuggling two to three tons of explosives a month; militants have also smuggled anti-tank/anti-aircraft missiles, Grad rockets and hundreds of thousands of guns. A recent raid to the Gaza-Egyptian border area exposed 15 smuggler tunnels along one mile of the border.
The Ha'aretz newspaper's military editor, Zeev Schiff, noted Friday that the Egyptians have not arrested a single arms smuggler, "even though Israel's security and intelligence services have given the Egyptians a list of the names of those involved in the gun running."
Here and there someone might have been arrested for a short while but no one was tried, he added.
"There are many Egyptian promises. Talks are being held in diplomatic and polite conversation with Israeli officials, but in practice nearly nothing is being done," he noted.
Before the Israelis withdrew from Gaza they negotiated a new arrangement with Egypt that provided for more, and better qualified, troops to be deployed along its border with Gaza. They are supposed to prevent arms smuggling.
However those troops' rules of engagement are "strange," Schiff reported.
The Egyptian guards are not allowed to shoot Palestinian smugglers nor return fire unless they are endangered. "Clearly the Egyptians are making great efforts not to hit Palestinians, even law breakers," he wrote, noting that Iranian funding is playing "a significant role" in the arms deliveries.
Israeli analysts speculated that inefficiency or corruption have allowed the smuggling buisness to continue.
