{UAH} Exposed: Egypt allowing Israel to conduct airstrikes in Sinai in 'secret alliance'
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Exposed: Egypt allowing Israel to conduct airstrikes in Sinai in 'secret alliance'
Egypt has for years been battling Islamic State insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula [Getty]
Date of publication: 4 February, 2018
Egypt has for two years been in a secret alliance with Israel, allowing Israeli drones to fly over the northern Sinai Peninsula conducting more than 100 covert airstrikes, according to a new report.
With Cairo lagging in the fight against Islamic State, Israel, which grew increasingly apprehensive because of the security situation in the nearby North African country sought to intervene, a report by New York Times revealed.
Fearing backlash, both countries have tried to hide traces of Israeli airstrikes which are leaving Egypt increasingly dependent on Israel for its security.
When flying over Egyptian airspace, Israel only uses unmarked drones and ensures that its Israeli jets and helicopters cover up their markings.
American officials briefed on this operation have said that some jets and helicopters fly circuitous routes to create an impression that they are based in the Egyptian mainland.
According to US officials, Egyptian President Abdelfattah al-Sisi fearing a domestic backlash has taken his own precautions to hide the origin of the strikes from all civilians and officials, except for a tiny circle of military and intelligence officers.
Journalists are barred from entering northern Sinai, declaring it a closed military zone.
The Israeli military has placed a strict censorship of public reports of the airstrikes.
It is unknown whether Israeli soldiers have stepped foot in Egypt during this secret operation.
While US Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused to discuss specific details of the operation, he urged that Cairo's attempts to hide the strategic alliance is nothing new.
"Israel does not want the bad stuff that is happening in the Egyptian Sinai to get into Israel," he said.
Cardin added that the Egyptian government hiding Israel's intervention from its people is "is not a new phenomenon."
Another US official expressed how perplexing it is that Cairo and Tel Aviv continue to discuss their security alliance, yet carry out joint operations in the dark.
 | You speak with Sisi and he talks about security cooperation with Israel |  |
"It is confusing to me" said Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee.
"You speak with Sisi and he talks about security cooperation with Israel, and you speak with Israelis and they talk about security cooperation with Egypt, but then this duplicitous game continues."
Egyptian security forces have been battling Islamic militants in Sinai for years, but the violence spread and intensified in 2013 after the military overthrew Mohammed Morsi, a freely elected Islamist president whose one-year rule proved divisive. The region is now home to a powerful Islamic State group affiliate that has claimed a number of large attacks.
Cairo has been including heavy handed government policies in Sinai ranging from displacements of civilians to shoot-to-kill orders which have not contained the insurgency. Instead they have sometimes made residents prey to recruitment by them.
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Lebanon military vows to block Israeli wall on Lebanese land
Israel is building a wall on its border with Lebanon [Getty]
Date of publication: 7 February, 2018
The higher defence council described Israel's plans to build a separation wall between the two countries as an attempt to annex Lebanese land and an act of aggression.
"This wall - if it is built - will be considered an assault on Lebanese land," the secretary general of the council said in a statement, according to Reuters.
"The higher defence council has given its instructions to confront this aggression to prevent Israel from building (the wall) on Lebanese territory."
Lebanon's political leadership have struck a similarly united and defiant tone on the issue.
President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri - who represent the country's main religious factions - said Tuesday that a wall on Lebanese territory will not be tolerated.
The three leaders viewed "Israeli threats, and saw in them... a direct threat to the stability", a statement from the president said.
Lebanon is also at loggerheads with Tel Aviv over Israeli claims to what it views as its waters.
The areas of dispute are part of Lebanon's latest push to develop prospective oil and gas fields off its coast.
Aoun, Hariri and Berri agreed "at various regional and international levels to prevent Israel from building the cement wall... and from the possibility of infringing on Lebanon's oil and gas wealth and its (territorial) waters".
An Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 led to the establishment of the UN's so-called "blue line" between the two countries.
Beirut also claims the Shebaa Farms area of the Golan Heights, which was illegally annexed by Israel following war with Syria in 1967.
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