Egypt Fails To Reduce Hamas Arms Flow

Israel’s intelligence community has determined that Egypt, despite numerous operations in 2008, failed to reduce the weapons flow to the Hamas regime in Gaza.

The Israel Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/site/home/default.asp ) reports that Egyptian efforts prior to the recent Hamas-Israel war was inadequate and failed to make a dent in the Hamas military effort.

The report comes as the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeks to win Egyptian approval for a crackdown on Hamas weapons smuggling.

Mr. Olmert and his senior ministers have accepted an Egyptian proposal to deploy another 1,300 troops along the almost nine-mile Gaza-Sinai border.

“In our assessment, Hamas will work as fast as it can to restore the tunnels damaged or destroyed…The tunnels play an extremely important role in the restoration of Hamas military infrastructure, since they make it possible for large quantities of weapons to flow regularly into Gaza,” the report said.

The report said Hamas would use any Egyptian-arranged cease-fire to accelerate weapons smuggling from the Sinai Peninsula. Despite official pronouncements, the report said, Egypt has ignored the Hamas tunnel network, which spans the divided city of Rafah on the Gaza-Sinai border.

“Despite the many attacks, some of the tunnels were not damaged and were used both during and after the fighting,” the report said. “In our assessment, there were several hundred tunnels in existence before Operation Cast Lead, many of which were used to smuggle weapons and military equipment into Gaza.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com