IDF pulls out all stops to set back infiltrations from Israel’s border with Egypt

 

The border is not just empty, it is barren.

On all sides, an ultra-still, uniquely desert quietude and tranquility surrounds the sand dunes we are standing atop, spoiled only occasionally and briefly by the sound of gusts of wind.

This area — the Bar-Lev Lookout Point — is Israel’s most peaceful border, the border with Egypt.

And yet, a bit northeast of Ezuz and a bit southeast of Nitzana and Kadesh Barnea, it is far less peaceful than it was in the past, leaving the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and police to play catch-up against the latest dangerous trends.

From 2010–2013, Israel built a new, tougher fence to better defend its border with Egypt, especially from illegal African migrants who had come into Israel in recent years — estimated at more than 60,000.

The hope was that this new fence would also reduce all kinds of cross-border smuggling.

It did, briefly.

Smugglers learned that they could outsmart the IDF

But then the smugglers learned from Hezbollah and Hamas that they could outsmart the IDF using cross-border tunnels and a variety of hard-to-track tactics to restore their smuggling operations — if not persons who were harder to move around fast, then drugs.

Israel’s security forces adjusted again. The country improved when it came to finding tunnels, and Egypt also, at times, put more effort into thwarting them.

In February 2023, the IDF and police managed to foil an attempted drug-smuggling operation over the Egyptian border worth about NIS 50 million. The suspects were spotted by IDF surveillance trying to smuggle 120 kilograms of drugs over the Egyptian border.

That bust was one of several notable stings carried out by the IDF and police during that period.

However, all of that progress was lost at some point during the past two years of war in the Middle East.

The IDF was too distracted with Gaza, Hezbollah, Iran, and several other threats to spend much time worrying about drug smuggling from Egypt. In the interim, drug smuggling evolved from tunnels, ladders, and cars to drones.

The Sinai smugglers saw that Hezbollah was achieving more direct hits against Israel using cheap drones than Iran and the Yemen Houthis were achieving using advanced ballistic missiles.