Israel and Egypt penned a deal on steps to stem arms smuggling into Gaza ahead of the Jewish state’s ceasefire to its war, a senior Israeli official said yesterday.
“Israel and Egypt have reached written understandings on security arrangements to prevent arms smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border and deeper inside the Sinai Peninsula,” the senior government official said.
The agreement was hammered out following intensive contacts between top Israeli Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad and Egyptian Minister without Portfolio and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who met twice in Cairo during the Gaza operation, he said.
The Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Egypt had agreed on “specific measures” to fight arms smuggling, but he declined to elaborate.
Israel had said that it stopped its deadly 22-day offensive on Hamas on Sunday after it secured guarantees on weapon smuggling from Egypt and the US.
But while Israel and Washington publicly signed an agreement on preventing the arms smuggling, Israeli and Egyptian officials have so far declined to say whether the two states had inked any deal.
The tenuous ceasefire held yesterday in Gaza, where Palestinians dug out from the rubble and Hamas put on a show of defiance, vowing to fight on after the Jewish state’s deadliest war on the strip.
No air strikes, rockets or fighting were reported by either side for the first time since Israel’s massive assault was launched on Dec. 27.
The guns had fallen silent around Gaza after Israel announced its unilateral ceasefire from Sunday and Hamas and other militant groups called a week-long truce of their own.
On the ground, the lull saw early efforts at a return to some sort of daily life amid the desolation, reporters said.
Some stores raised their metal shutters and banks opened doors. Hamas police reappeared on the streets and directed traffic at intersections.
Many people were scavenging through rubble to salvage what they could — clothes, a television, books, tins of food.
Najette Manah, three small children in tow, clutched a box of rice that she found amid the debris of what was her home.
“We don’t have homes anymore. I don’t have anything anymore,” she said.
However, Hamas’ armed wing spat defiance at a televised media conference, saying it would rearm and demanding the Jewish state withdraw its forces from the Palestinian enclave by Sunday or face more rocket attacks.
Abu Obeida, masked spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, echoed his leader’s proclamation that the 22-day operation was a “divine victory” for Hamas.
The movement lost only 48 fighters, the spokesman said, after Israel reported killing more than 500 Hamas members during Operation Cast Lead. He also claimed Israel lost “at least 80 soldiers” in the fighting.
Israeli listed 10 soldiers killed.
Gaza medics said more than 1,300 Palestinians have died.
Abu Obeida underlined that Hamas’ own ceasefire would last only a week unless Israel fully withdrew troops from Gaza.
“We have given the Zionist enemy one week to pull out of the Gaza Strip, failing which we will pursue the resistance,” he said.
“Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption. We are still able to launch them and, thanks be to God, our rockets will strike other targets,” in Israel.
Israel’s efforts to prevent Hamas from re-arming, would also fail, Abu Obeida said.
“Let them do what they want. Bringing in weapons for the resistance and making them is our mission and we know full well how to acquire weapons. What we lost during this war in terms of military capability is small and we managed to compensate for most of it even before the war ended,” he said.
Amid the lull, Israel agreed to let nearly 200 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza and to supply 400,000 liters of fuel to the territory, an official said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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