After discovering last week, a tunnel from Gaza into the Sinai that extended 1850 meters, Egypt has decide to extend it sterile zone along its 14 kilometer Gazan border from 500 meters to 1000 meters it was announced on Thursday.
So far Egypt has destroyed 500 Rafah homes, affecting 25,000 people, and that number will now increase.
Egypt has paid out close to 8 million dollars to Rafah residents who homes were destroyed.The town of Rafah is located on the southern end of Gaza and is split in two by the border, half on the Gazan side, and half on the Egyptian/Sinai side.
In addition, Egypt is digging a trench along the 50 kilometer border that goes down to a depth of 50 meters to help stop the infiltrations from Gaza into the Sinai.
Egypt is still angry at the recent Gazan terror attack that killed over 30 Egyptian security personnel, which it blames on Hamas.
It has completely shut down the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.
Only Israel’s crossings into Gaza remain open, and Israel is allowing in construction material this coming week, which the UN claims will be monitored for misuse.
Gaza needs the construction material to rebuild homes that were destroyed after Hamas attacked Israel this summer and instigated a war.
Egyptian President A-Sisi said on Egyptian TV that he wasn’t going to allow Sinai to become a staging ground for terror attacks against Israel.