The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah has exposed the existence of a secret overpass between Egypt and Gaza, which Hamas could use to import anything without international supervision, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Lt. Col. Amit Yagor (Res.), a former intelligence officer, wrote:
[Egypt] enables an entire industry of smuggling tunnels from its territory to the territory of the Gaza Strip and, in practice, constitutes the organization’s “oxygen pipe” and a main source of illegal weapons, ammunition, and prohibited materials that enabled the establishment of “Deep Gaza.”
The highlight was the existence of an overpass between Egypt and Gaza – the Salah al-Din crossing that was used for the movement of goods from Egypt to the Gaza Strip without any Israeli or international supervision. It was not widely publicized and operated in addition to the famous Rafah crossing.
Apparently, the economy of the tunnels/goods/crossings and the industry that developed on Egyptian soil contributed quite a bit to the quiet that Egypt asked to preserve in the Sinai Peninsula, and hence the Egyptian interest in not eliminating it, as Egypt knew how to do in many other cases.
Egypt had opposed an Israeli operation in Rafah, as had the Biden administration. It is clear now that Egypt wanted to cover up its role in Hamas’s smuggling and importing of weapons. The Biden administration may also have wanted to preserve the image of Egypt as a U.S. ally.
Since attacking Rafah in early May, Israel has seized control of nearly the entire Philadelphi Corridor, as the road along the Egypt-Gaza border is called. In so doing, it has killed terrorists and destroyed tunnels and rocket launchers.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
