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Sharon enters the weekly cabinet meeting, accompanied by bodyguards. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 28, 2005 |
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Israel's Cabinet on Sunday approved a plan for Egypt to deploy 750 troops on its volatile border with the Gaza Strip to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Palestinian territory.
The transfer of border security to the Egyptians is key to ending Israel's 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip. Israel currently patrols a security strip, known as the Philadelphi Route, along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israel and Egypt completed an agreement last week on the new security regime over the border area. Israel has expressed concern that militants will take advantage of the pullout to increase smuggling of explosives and weapons for future attacks against Israel.
The Cabinet approved the Egyptian troop deployment by a vote of 18-2, according to government officials.
Under the new agreement, Egyptian troops will be responsible for the security tasks Israeli soldiers used to conduct on the border.
It wasn't immediately clear what responsibilities Palestinian troops on the Gaza side of the border would have. Palestinian forces have been working with Israeli troops along the border since a cease-fire between Israel and militant groups was reached earlier this year. Egypt has also sent security officials into Gaza to train Palestinian forces.
Sharon's own National Security Advisor, Giora Eiland, said that he opposes changes to the 1978 Egypt--Israel peace treaty that will allow Egyptian border police to deploy on the Egypt-Gaza border. He said the deal allows Egypt a clear gain, but that Israel does not get anything in return, ynet reported.
Likud MKs, including Sharon rival Binyamin Netanyahu and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuval Steinitz have been arguing for weeks that the move represents a remilitarization of Sinai, which was demilitarized under the 1978 Camp David Accords. Steinitz told The Jerusalem Post last week that the agreement was a Trojan Horse which would bring the Egyptian military back to the eastern Sinai. "The fear is not from the 750 border policemen, but from the precedent it sets of allowing the rearmament of the border," he said.
Steinitz called today a "black day for Israel."
Netanyahu said "This is another mistake of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which will give a tailwind to terrorism and infuse terror bases in Gaza with weapons."
The AP contributed to this report.
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