Occupied Palestine | فلسطين

PNN – Palestine News Network – Egyptian Army Returns to Sinai, Israeli Army Locks Down Border

01.02.11 – 11:35

Cairo – PNN – For the first time since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, Egyptian army units moved into the Sinai Peninsula as part of an effort to secure the tourist resort of Sharm al-Sheikh. The deployment was agreed upon by Israel, which in turn moved Israeli army units to the Egyptian border to prevent infiltration by militants.

Egypt’s Nile Delta and the Sinai Peninsula (PNN Archive).

The Egyptian deployment consisted of about 800 troops in the relatively calm area, which has seen—in comparison with the nearly 100 civilian deaths reported between Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria—just only a few incidents. Tourists at Sharm al-Sheikh told the Guardian newspaper that the situation was “pretty relaxed” and one Israeli tourist said Sinai was “completely calm, a paradise.” Tourism makes up about 11% of the Egyptian gross domestic product (GDP).

Israeli military authorities cleared the move with their Egyptian counterparts on Monday and began emergency deployments of their own, maneuvering army and border police units along the Israel-Egypt border.

According to the Associated Press, “Israeli officials have grown increasingly concerned about the stability of their southern neighbor. They are especially worried that Palestinian militants could take advantage of the unrest to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.”

In addition to preventing militants from crossing the border, Israeli military authorities claim they must prepare for the possibility of masses of unarmed asylum-seekers, such as the Sinai Bedouin.

“We know that if the Bedouin start fleeing the Egyptian army, it will be into Israel,” an Israeli regional chairman told Israeli online newspaper Ha’aretz.

PNN – Palestine News Network – Egyptian Army Returns to Sinai, Israeli Army Locks Down Border.