A WONDERFUL GAZA SECURITY PLAN!
Wolf, Fox, and Weasel Plan to Guard Gaza Chicken Yard Gate!
Alias Hamas, Fatah, and Egypt (+ Iran Offers Help) – Who could ask for anything More!
Sleep Tight Tonight Israel, the Arab Keystone Cops are Awake!!!!
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
At least part of what Rabshakeh said to Judah’s King Hezekiah on behalf of the King of Assyria was correct.
And it is still true today for Israel, when they are crazy enough to put their trust in Egypt’s ability to help against their Islamic enemies.
Isaiah 36:6 – Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
Cairo invites Hamas for talks on Rafah border situation
Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST
January 28, 2008
Egypt has invited Hamas representatives to Cairo for talks on ways of controlling the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai.
Hamas officials said the visit would take place later this week. They expressed satisfaction that the Egyptians were coordinating their moves with Hamas.
The invitation came shortly after Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad held talks in Cairo on the latest developments along the border.
During the visit, Fayad appealed to the Egyptians to allow the PA’s Force 17 Presidential Guard to assume control over the Rafah crossing. Fayad is reported to have stressed the PA’s opposition to the presence of Hamas security personnel at the border.
PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said the Egyptians agreed to allow the Presidential Guard to return to the Rafah terminal in accordance with an agreement reached between the two parties in 2005. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces left the border crossing after Hamas took full control over the Gaza Strip in June.
Abbas has also been invited to Cairo later this week for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on the latest border crisis.
Speaking to reporters in Cairo, Malki said: “Hamas will be told about this agreement and they will have to accept the presence of the Presidential Guard at the border. This is the Egyptian position as delivered to us by Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and General Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.”
The PA minister said the agreement would be discussed by the Arab League foreign ministers during their upcoming meeting in Cairo and warned Hamas against rejecting it.
“If Hamas rejects the agreement, they will be held responsible for the continued closure of the border [with Egypt],” he said.
Earlier this week, Abbas presented the Arab League ministers with a security plan for control of the border. The plan calls for deploying members of Abbas’s Presidential Guard at the Rafah border crossing and completely ignores Hamas’s demand for joint control.
Hamas reiterated Sunday its opposition to Abbas’s plan, saying it would not recognize the agreement that was signed between
the PA and Egypt after Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005.
“We want new arrangements at the border,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. “The agreement that was reached in 2005 does not exist any longer.”
He added that the main reason for Hamas’s opposition to the 2005 agreement was because it allowed international observers to be stationed at the border crossing. “The Rafah border should be controlled only by Palestinians and Egyptians,” he said.
Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces sealed off roads to el-Arish in the northern Sinai, stopping hundreds of Palestinians from entering the town. They also ordered shops and gas stations to close down as part of an effort to block the influx of Gazans. Nevertheless, Palestinians c ontinued to flock into other parts of Egypt for a fifth c
onsecutive day on Sunday.
About a dozen Hamas-affiliated troops fanned out on both sides of the Rafah crossing Sunday in their first significant deployment there during the five-day ordeal.
They appeared to be coordinating security efforts with their Egyptian counterparts, jointly directing traffic and manning checkpoints alongside one another. Egyptian forces have been deployed in the hundreds here for several days, and some guards have also crossed briefly into Gaza.
On Sunday, both forces encouraged Gaza motorists to return to the Palestinian territory.
But the cooperation appeared only to be between low-level security guards on the ground, and not indicative of any change in policy by Hamas or the Egyptian government.
Before the border breach, Hamas had no role in patrolling Gaza’s borders.
Some Palestinians could be seen returning to Gaza on Sunday, though streets on the Egyptian side of Rafah were still jammed with people bargaining for gasoline, water bottles, car batteries, carpets and other supplies.
A rare rainstorm turned the area’s dusty thoroughfares into sludge, making window-shopping a messy affair and prompting some customers to return home early.
Some stores in Rafah were closed Sunday, either because of the bad weather or because supplies had run low. Some speculated that Egyptian officials had encouraged shopkeepers to close in hopes that Palestinian customers would return home.
AP contributed to this report
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 2
Iran offers to help Egypt with Rafah
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST
January 28, 2008
Iran on Sunday offered to help Egypt deal with growing chaos on its breached border with Gaza, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said.
The offer came during a rare visit to Cairo by a top Iranian diplomat, Ali Asghar Mohammadi, who serves as the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s director-general for Arab, Middle East and North African affairs. He met Sunday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
Egypt and Iran have had no formal ties in nearly three decades, but government ministers from the two countries have met frequently in the past two months.
Last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telephoned his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, for the first time to discuss the Gaza border crisis.
Mohammadi offered Iran’s “cooperation with Egypt to provide help to the Palestinians,” said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki. He did not give details of the Iranian
offer, but said Egypt welcomes cooperation between the two countries through their Red Crescent branches.
Teheran cut diplomatic ties after Cairo signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and provided asylum for the deposed Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Relations further deteriorated when Egypt backed Iraq during the 1980-1988 Gulf War. Since then, the two countries have had limited diplomatic contacts.
Aboul Gheit has said that a resumption of ties could only take place if Iran takes down a large mural of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s assassin, Khaled el-Islambouli, and changes the name of a street honoring him.
El-Islambouli was one of the army officers who killed Sadat during a military parade in 1981. Egypt executed him by firing squad soon thereafter.
Begin DEBKAfile Article 3
Egypt summons Hamas leaders for crisis talks five days after they blew up Gaza-Sinai border wall
January 27, 2008, 11:44 AM (GMT+02:00)
Since Tuesday, Jan. 22, almost half Gaza’s Palestinian population of 1.5 million has surged into northern Sinai, their gunmen and sheer numbers forcing Egyptian riot troops to stand back while taking 40 injured, some critically. The summons to Cairo was issued by Egyptian foreign minister Abdullah Gheit who appealed to “our Palestinian brothers” not to abuse his government’s hospitality.
Egyptian border guards are reported to have apprehended 20 Palestinian bands armed with weapons and surveillance instruments in Sinai Saturday night.
Israel has closed the main Highway 10 to Eilat which runs along the 220-km unfenced frontier and sections of the Negev.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that the flood of shoppers masks intense efforts by
the Palestinian terrorist Hamas, Jihad Islami, Fatah-Al Aqsa Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees as well as al Qaeda to establish a base in northern Sinai. They don’t see anyone stopping them.
Restoring the border, Western military experts have told DEBKAfile, would require the deployment of 30,000 Egyptian troops to the El Arish area and divided Rafah Gaza border, backed by air force, navy
and armored units.
This would contravene the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. But even if this obstacle could be overcome, Cairo would never on any account let itself be drawn into battle with Palestinians in view of the catastrophic impact it would have on President Hosni Mubarak’s standing at home and the Arab world. For now, the Egyptian army lacks strength on this scale without calling up reserves.
Hamas and its allies have broken the Israeli siege of Gaza. In so doing, a bunch of terrorist groups has acquired control of a chunk of northern Sinai twice the size of the Gaza Strip as well as a safe haven against Israeli reprisals for their cross-border attacks. A Western military source says the terrorists have laid the foundations of a “Palestinian Waziristan.”
At best, Mubarak might persuade the Gazan invaders to accept a power-sharing arrangement over the lost Egyptian enclave.
Early Thursday, Jan. 24, American forces and equipment withdrew from the Multi-Force Organization base at Al Gura northeast of al Arish when they learned from Egyptian contacts that Hamas had begun moving some of its elite units into the new stronghold. Washington and Cairo are discussing evacuating the entire base and its 400 multinational personnel, which monitors Sinai’s demilitarization under the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, for fear of Hamas and al Qaeda missile fire and shelling of the base.
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