ISRAEL WILL allow Egypt to reinforce its troop deployment in the Sinai following last week’s attack north of the Red Sea resort of Eilat, in which eight Israelis were killed by Palestinian militants who infiltrated the border.
The Economistreported that defence minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have agreed that thousands of extra Egyptian troops, along with armoured vehicles and helicopters can be transferred to the Sinai peninsula, although extra tanks will not be allowed.
The peace agreement signed between Israel and Egypt in 1979 limited Egyptian deployment in the peninsula to lightly armed border guards and also restricted Israeli military strength along the border. However, Mr Barak explained that permitting Egyptian reinforcements would serve Israeli interests as they would work against militants and arms smuggling. “Sometimes you have to subordinate strategic considerations to tactical needs,” he said.
The Sinai peninsula was the site of bitter clashes between Israeli and Egyptian forces in Middle East wars in 1956, 1967 and 1973.
Earlier this year, before the fall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Israel permitted Egypt to send thousands of extra soldiers to northern Sinai to combat Islamic gunmen operating there.
The speaker of Israel’s parliament, Reuven Rivlin, cautioned that any move to alter the peace agreement would have to be approved by the Knesset.
Arab League secretary general Nabil Elaraby told al-Arabiya TV that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is not as sacred as the Koran. The former Egyptian foreign minister said that if one of the sides breached the treaty, the other side reserved the right to amend or annul it.
A few hundred Egyptians gathered yesterday outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo calling on the government to expel Israel’s ambassador over a border incident last week when five Egyptian policemen were killed by Israeli troops during an exchange of fire with Palestinian militants.
Protesters waving Egyptian flags chanted “The people want the right of our martyrs in Sinai to be redeemed”, but the turnout disappointed organisers who had called for a “million-man protest” on the last Friday of Ramadan.
Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops north of Jerusalem after Friday prayers. The demonstrators complained that Israel had imposed security restrictions, limiting access to al-Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.