Gunrunning threatens Israel and Gaza

JERUSALEM, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Dozens of tunnels, many from Egypt, have been used in the past year to move enough weapons into Gaza to supply an army, an Israeli official said.

With Palestinian parliamentary elections Wednesday and Israeli voting in March, weapons supplied through the quarter-century-old tunnel system threaten the both societies, The New York Times reported.

"We're not talking about weapons for terrorism but about weapons for an army," Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman, told the newspaper.

While the Palestinian Authority financed some tunnels, most of the weaponry "went to Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terrorist organizations," Steinitz said.

Jordan largely heeded Israel's call five years ago to dismantle gunrunning tunnels, he said.

"But Egypt did almost nothing, and today 90 percent of the Palestinians' weapons and arms are coming from Egypt," Steinitz said.

While the pace slowed since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, people involved expect gunrunning to pick up again should fighting break out between Palestinian factions or with Israel.