WSJ: Israel Told Egypt About Planned Military Op To Control Border With Gaza

Israeli officials informed Egypt that they are planning to carry out a military operation to take control of the border area between Egypt and Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend.

Israel’s plan involves removing Palestinian officials from the Rafah crossing point and stationing Israeli forces along the border, allowing Israel to block Hamas tunnels, thwart the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, and prevent Hamas terrorists from fleeing the Strip.

“There is no chance we will allow this crossing to operate as it did before,” said Michael Milshtein, a former head of the Department for Palestinians Affairs in Israeli military intelligence. But it is a “very, very complicated situation,” he added, likely referring to Egyp’s recent refusal to Israel’s request for Israeli security officials to carry out joint patrols with Egypt on the Egyptian side of the border. Egypt assured Israel it is stepping up its surveillance of the border but it won’t share surveillance feeds with Israel.

Another complicating factor is that an operation in the area involves complex planning due to the presence of over a million Gazan civilians who evacuated the Strip, most of whom are assembled in the city of Rafah next to the border.

A senior Israeli military official said: “Israel does not want to be responsible for Gaza in the long term, but the question is how do you make sure that Gaza stays demilitarized? It’s a real dilemma. The only way to control a geographic area is to control what’s going in and out.”

“Right now in the near term, in the next few decades, Israel needs to control the borders because of the security issues,” said the official.

Israel hasn’t finalized a plan for a military operation on the border and even when approved, its timing can only be determined after negotiations take place with Egypt.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2002, it maintained control of Gaza’s territorial waters, airspace, and most of its border crossings – except for Rafah, relinquishing control of it to Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and a European Union monitoring mission. [The EU monitors left when Hamas seized control of the Strip in 2007.]

“The Philadelphi Corridor has to be in our hands, it has to be closed,” Netanyahu said last month. “It’s clear that any other arrangement won’t guarantee the disarmament that we want.”