Israel Raises Alarm over Sinai-Gaza Cooperation

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“Israel is facing a growing security threat to its South because of the changes brought on by the Arab Spring which is not likely to disappear any time soon,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. "The security problem which is developing as a result of changes in the Middle East is getting worse, and is expected to continue for years," Netanyahu told MPs at the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and defense, in remarks communicated by a spokesperson. "The state of Israel is required to strengthen its defense and attack capabilities immediately, which costs a lot of money," he said. "Libyan arms continue to flow into Gaza through Sinai," he said, indicating that there were "more than 10,000 missiles" in the coastal enclave, some of which had a range "surpassing 40 kilometers (24 miles)." The ongoing reconciliation process between Fatah and Hamas would force the Zionist entity to demand that Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip would be under similar terms as Fatah-controlled West Bank, Netanyahu noted. "Fatah-Hamas unity would force us to demand that the Gaza Strip be demilitarized," he said. He accused Iran of using the Egyptian Sinai as a staging area for launching attacks on the occupying entity. "Terror elements have entered the region, they're using the area as a platform for terror, Sinai has become a designation for Iran," he said, noting that in an attack last summer a missile was shot at a helicopter, which managed to dodge it. In the August attack, gunmen infiltrated southern occupied territories from Sinai and launched a coordinated series of ambushes on buses and cars on the route which runs along the Egyptian border some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Red Sea resort of Eilat, leaving eight dead and more than 25 wounded. "The peace with Egypt has been and is valuable to both countries, but under the surface, the civilian grudge against Israel on the street has become a political asset," Netanyahu continued. In September, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose rise followed president Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in February, demanded a "revision" of ties with the Zionist entity but did not call for scrapping the treaty, the first between the brutal authority of occupation and an Arab country. Netanyahu warned that breaking the treaty with the entity would cost its southern neighbor dearly. "US financial support to Egypt, following the peace with Israel, could be terminated if the peace treaty is cancelled," he said. "It is clear to us that all we knew in Egypt under Mubarak's regime is not what will be in the future, and there will be wide security implication.

Source: Agencies

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