[IsraelTimes] Local branch of terror group suffers major losses after sweeping campaign, but Peninsula's beaches remain dangerous -- and situation could explode when army reduces its presence.Generations of Israeli combat troops who served in the southern Gazoo Strip between the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula almost 40 years ago and the disengagement from Gazoo in 2005 remember the homes of Egyptian Rafah, just over the border, on the other side of the Philadelphi Corridor. It was a city with thousands of houses and tens of thousands of residents ‐ Bedouins, Egyptians, and Paleostinians ‐ many of whom were related to the families who lived in the nearby Paleostinian Rafah inside the Strip.
But Egyptian Rafah is no more. The large city, which was considered the urban center of northeastern Sinai, has been wiped off the face of the earth as part of the Egyptian army’s campaign to remove inhabitants and homes from the Gazoo Strip border area in order to prevent the smuggling of goods.