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Terrorist Organizations Using Cease-Fire to Build Up Arsenal

In the wake of the lull in the fighting, terrorist organizations have recently stepped up their efforts to smuggle arms and ammunition from Egypt into Israel and the Gaza Strip. This stems from the organizations' interest to take advantage of the cease-fire to increase their operative capabilities and accumulate power in anticipation of Israel 's implementation of its disengagement plan. In the absence of effective counter-measures by the Palestinian Authority, this phenomenon is expected to continue even more intensely.

Some of the smuggling activity is carried out in the Rafah region, using the tunnels passing underneath the Philadelphi Road (which served as the lifeline of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip even before the lull, and some of the activity is carried out through Sinai (to the Gaza Strip and Israel ).

Since the beginning of 2005, there have been approximately 30 incidents of smuggling from the Sinai region, some to the Gaza Strip and some to the Negev . Since the beginning of the year, approximately 1000 rifles, dozens of RPG launchers, about 150 handguns and tens of thousands of bullets have been smuggled from Sinai to the Gaza Strip. It appears that during the month of March 2005, about fiveanti-aircraft shoulder missiles were smuggled into the Gaza Strip using one of the tunnels. Figures in the Palestinian military intelligence and members of Hamas took part in that activity.

The Palestinian Authority attempts to demonstrate action against the tunnel activity in Rafah and has even uncovered approximately 20 tunnels during the lull. However, the measures it takes against the smuggling activity and the smugglers are not thorough and effective enough, and members of the military security even assist the smugglers.

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)