Tel Aviv fears 'anti-Israel' Egypt

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during his meeting with EU ambassadors in East Jerusalem Al-Quds on April 11, 2011.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/175241.html

More than two months after the Egyptian revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed fears that the new government in Egypt is becoming 'anti-Israel.'

Addressing a gathering of European Union ambassadors in East Jerusalem Al-Quds last week, Netanyahu said that some of the voices coming out of Egypt show “hostility” toward Tel Aviv, Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Saturday.

The Israeli premier said he is “especially concerned” over recent remarks made by Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi.

The Egyptian top diplomat, along with other senior officials, has reportedly called Israel Egypt's “enemy.”

Commenting on the possibility of economic ties with Tel Aviv, Egypt's Finance Minister Samir Radwan has also stressed that Cairo did not need investments from "the enemy."

Netanyahu's worries are echoed by several other senior Israeli officials.

This comes as mass anti-Israeli demonstrations were held outside Israel's embassy in Cairo and its consulate in the Egyptian city of Alexandria during the past weeks.

On April 8, over one million Egyptian protesters gathered in Cairo's Liberation Square urging their military rulers to lift the almost four-year long crippling siege of the Gaza Strip.

The protesters also called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in Egypt.

The developments come almost two months after a historic revolution ousted former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's toppled regime under Mubarak served the interests of Israel by assisting and keeping silent on the killing of Gazans.

'US sends warships, troops to Egypt'

USS Kearsarge warship

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/164038.html

The US is sending warships, including one with 800 troops, and other military assets to Egypt as the revolution in the North African country gains momentum.

Officials in Washington have stated that the move is to be prepared in case of an evacuation of Americans from Egypt.

Pentagon has dismissed widespread assumptions that military intervention in Cairo is being contemplated, asserting that the objective of the deployment is mainly for the evacuation of US citizens in case the situation in Egypt further deteriorates.

Separately, a US aircraft carrier has been asked to abort its mission and stay in the Mediterranean.

The move comes after reports last month that a US Army aviation regiment had been mobilized for deployment to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to back the Multinational Force and Observers overseeing the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

The recent move comes against the backdrop of deepening political stalemate in Egypt, where swarms of demonstrators are still spilling out into central Cairo's Liberation Square, demanding the ouster of embattled President Hosni Mubarak.

On Sunday, opponents of Mubarak, including Egypt's main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, held negotiations with Vice President Omar Suleiman as part of efforts to extract the country out of its political standoff.

Muslim Brotherhood, however, has discarded the regime's proposed reform plans, asserting that protesters would not accept anything but Mubarak's resignation.

In another development, US President Barack Obama called for a "representative government" in Egypt after government and opposition parties failed to narrow down their differences.

Millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Sunday to honor hundreds of protesters killed during the anti-government rallies of the past 13 days.

According to the United Nations, at least 300 people have so far been killed and thousands more have been injured during nationwide protests in Egypt.

Israel: No more Egypt troops in Sinai

A file photo of an Israeli military convoy along the Egyptian border

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/164075.html

Israel has refused a request by Egyptian authorities for the deployment of additional military forces to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, a report says.

Fearing a complete breakdown of the peace treaty with Cairo, Tel Aviv has for the second time refused Egypt's request for more troops in Sinai, the Israel daily newspaper JPost reported on its website on Monday.

“We do not want it to seem as if the peace treaty is meaningless, particularly at a time when there could be a regime change in Egypt, which could renounce the treaty altogether,” the report quoted an unnamed military official as saying.

According to the source, Israel will not allow a complete breach of the treaty even in the event of regime change in troubled Egypt.

Meanwhile, the US Army's Aviation Regiment recently mobilized for deployment to Sinai in order to back the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) overseeing the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

The MFO is an international peacekeeping force overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Under the 1979 treaty, Israel returned Sinai to Egypt and Cairo agreed to leave the peninsula demilitarized.

The recent revolution protests in Egypt against the embattled President Hosni Mubarak's regime, an Israeli ally, has caused serious concerns in Tel Aviv which fears the instigation of an Islamic establishment in the Arab world's most populous country.

Egypt building watchtowers near Gaza

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/157161.html


Egypt is building surveillance towers along the border with the Gaza Strip as part of its measures to step up restrictions on the besieged coastal enclave.

Egyptian security officials said on Saturday that the first of the steel and concrete towers, measuring almost 100 feet (30.5 meters) in height, near the Rafah Crossing, is almost completed, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the structures were being built to improve the monitoring of movements along the border.

Cairo is also constructing an underground steel wall to disrupt a network of tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, which the Palestinians use to import basic food items and other supplies into the blockaded territory.

Egyptian authorities regularly fill the tunnels with gas or flood them with water and the underground lifelines are frequently bombed by Israeli fighter jets.

The construction of the steel wall and observation towers has caused tension between Egypt and other countries in the region.

In 2009, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah criticized Egypt over the construction of the underground steel wall, saying it would "terminate the thin veins, which are giving some life and some hope to Gaza."

Israel has imposed a crippling land and sea siege on the Gaza Strip for over three years, pushing the densely-populated coastal sliver, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians, to the verge of starvation

Egypt to seal sea border with Gaza

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118129&sectionid=351020202

Egypt is to close its sea border to the Gaza-bound supplies as it reinforces the restrictions against the passage of sustenance into the strip.

Cairo has ordered a port to be built at its maritime border with the Gaza Strip, a security official was quoted by AFP as saying. The security boats there would then "prevent all future attempts to smuggle Palestinian contraband," he added.

The surveillance multiplies the restrictions Cairo has placed along the terrestrial border at a time when the coastal sliver of 1.5-million population continues to suffer from an all-out Israeli-imposed blockade which has deprived it of its basic necessities for almost three years.

Egypt has kept shut the Rafah border crossing the sliver's only border that bypasses Israel claiming that the border post is an Egyptian-Israeli crossing and should not be used without Tel Aviv's permission.

The Egyptian government is additionally building a steel wall along the Gaza border to prevent the trafficking of any goods into the strip.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said late last month that "fortifications along our eastern border are a work of Egyptian sovereignty, and we refuse to enter into a debate with anyone [about them]."

Egypt has also banned all relief convoys from using its territory to enter Gaza after causing numerous complications for the high-profile Viva Palestina convoy, which had departed for the enclave headed by British member of parliament George Galloway.