Earlier Tuesday, Egyptian police discovered two tons of explosives hidden near the border with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Egyptian security forces said.
The discovery was the second in the last three days in Rafah, a town close to the Egypt-Gaza border.
| It sounds like Rafah needs to be relocated a bit further inland. |
An Egyptian source, who declined to be named, reported that Egyptian police thwarted an attempt on Sunday to smuggle 500 kg of explosives into Gaza. In addition, police discovered on Monday the entrances to four tunnels used for smuggling.
"The Egyptian police received information about some smugglers storing these explosives in the area of Sarsuriyah near to the border between Egypt and Gaza," another source said.
Some 400 tunnel entrances have been discovered by Egyptian police this year. They are usually blocked off or blown up.
Last Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed in an Israel Air Force strike on smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack, saying it came in response to two mortar shells fired at the western Negev from Gaza.
Gaza's smuggling tunnels, which still number in the hundreds despite air attacks and an Egyptian crackdown in which some have been blown up or flooded, are a frequent target of Israeli retaliation for attacks by Gaza's armed Palestinian groups.
Smugglers send weapons and goods through tunnels to Gaza to circumvent an Israeli-led blockade.
| Israeli-led on one side. Egyptian-led on the other. That's why it's an Egyptian crackdown, you see. |
|