An IAF drone takes off. (Tsahi Ben-Ami/Flash90)
A former senior Israeli official says the IDF in recent months has used drones to attack terrorists in the Sinai in coordination with Egypt.
A former senior Israeli official said the IDF has conducted numerous drone attacks on terrorists in the Sinai in recent years with Egypt’s blessing, Bloomberg reported Monday.
In an article on the recent tightening of relations between Jerusalem and Cairo, the anonymous source revealed the information on the high level of cooperation between the two countries.
Such cooperation has been alluded to in the past by top Israeli defense officials.
The article recounts how that Egypt has acted with a fervor against Islamic armed groups and weapons moving between Sinai and Hamas-controlled Gaza, destroying and flooding hundreds of cross-border tunnels.
Israel has responded to Egypt with financial gestures and, according to the Israeli military’s deputy chief of staff, increased intelligence-sharing.
“The level of cooperation is something we’ve never experienced before,” Major-General Yair Golan said. “It’s not about love, it’s not about common values. I wouldn’t describe it as the relationship we have with the United States of America, but I think it’s a good starting point.”
“There is definitely a high level of cooperation that could be unprecedented, especially in the field of combating terrorism,” said Mohamed Kamal, a former lawmaker and a political science professor at Cairo University. “Egypt will handle this issue in a rational way, based on national interest.”
“In this time of turmoil and instability all around the Middle East, it’s very important for reasonable countries to keep some kind of cooperation,” Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview to Bloomberg in his office in Jerusalem.
In the latest sign of the warming relations, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday to discuss efforts to renew the stalled Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process, the first public visit by an Egyptian foreign minister in nine years.
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