The Chairman of the State Information Service (SIS) Diaa Rashwan responded to several allegations from Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, regarding Egypt’s supposed allowance of Hamas smuggling tunnels.
Rashwan explained that these allegations state that smuggling operations of weapons, explosives, ammunition and their components to the Gaza Strip are being carried out from Egypt through several methods, including tunnels that the statements claim exist on both sides of the border.
The world knows the full extent of the efforts made by Egypt in the last 10 years to achieve security and stability in Sinai and enhance security on the border between Egyptian Rafah and Gaza Strip, he stressed.
Rashwan added that the true essence of Israel’s claims is to justify its continued killing and starving of more than two million Palestinians inside Gaza Strip, which has been going on for 17 years.
“Egypt suffered greatly from these tunnels after the overthrow of the Brotherhood regime in June 2013 until 2020, and they represented means for smuggling fighters and weapons into Sinai to carry out terrorist operations that claimed the lives of more than 3,000 martyrs from the army, police, and civilians, and more than 13,000 injured,” he explained.
Rashwan said, “A five-kilometer-long buffer zone was created from the Egyptian city of Rafah to the border with Gaza, more than 1,500 tunnels were destroyed, and the border wall with Gaza Strip extending for 14 kilometers was strengthened by a concrete wall six meters long above the ground and six meters underground.”
He added that, “There are now three barriers between Sinai and the Palestinian Rafah, with which any smuggling operation is impossible, neither above nor below the ground, as Egypt has full sovereignty over its land, and has complete control over its entire northeastern border, whether with the Strip or with Israel.”
