Israeli sources: Egyptian police found explosive materials near Gaza-Egypt border

Thursday November 22, 2007 14:24 by Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

Israeli sources reported that Egyptian police found explosive materials near a school in the town of Al Arish on the Gaza-Egypt borders on Thursday.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Israeli PM Ehod Olmert - File 2007

According to the sources, the Egyptian police found a ton of explosives in an underground cave while searching for smuggling tunnels used by the Palestinian resistance to get weapons and food supplies into the coastal region.

This latest discovery was made public less than two days after the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told the Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert that Egypt is doing its best to stop the resistance from smuggling weapons into Gaza via Egypt using underground tunnels.

The American and Israeli administrations have put severe pressure on the Egyptian regime to stop the weapon smuggling on the Egypt-Gaza border.

The Israeli army that is surrounding the Gaza strip has imposed a total siege on Gaza shortly after Hamas took power in the 2006 Palestinian elections.  All crossings in or out of Gaza have been totally closed after Hamas took total control of the coastal region in late June 2007, after two weeks of bloody internal infighting with its rival movement Fatah.

gaza strip | palestinian attacks | news report ghassanb at imemc dot org