Contrary to Defense Minister Israel Katz’s announcement 10 days ago about his directive to the IDF to declare a closed military zone along the Egypt border, this has not been done at all, and is not expected to be implemented soon. The military explained that this is a tool already available in Southern Command’s arsenal when needed, and has been used more than once in the past 15 years in a targeted manner and for professional considerations by the Command’s generals, given intelligence warnings of potential attacks at the border or during security incidents. Therefore, free movement along the border continues, but the IDF has managed to reduce the phenomenon to “only” one successful smuggling operation per day – that they know of – from the Egyptian border, rather than 4-5 smuggling operations as was the case until a month or two ago.
