David Parsons, May 21, 2004

It was an especially bloody week in the unrelenting mini-war between Israeli troops and Palestinian terror militias over cross-border arms smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza, but the Multinational Force and Observers charged with monitoring weaponry on the Egyptian side of the border seemed no where to be found.

Israel this week launched "Operation Rainbow," a major incursion into the Palestinian town of Rafah to finally cut off the flow of illegal weapons through tunnels dug underneath the narrow IDF-patrolled Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.

The move came after 7 Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian militias defending tunnels the IDF is now calling the "oxygen" of the intifada.

In addition, Israeli intelligence was warning that an Iranian shipment of Katyushas, Sagger anti-tank rockets and other missiles had arrived on the Egyptian side of the border, awaiting transit through the myriad of tunnels.

So far, the four-day old Israeli operation has claimed some 40 Palestinian lives, most armed men trying to protect the lifeline of their terrorist enterprise. But several civilians pressed towards the front line of battle have also died in the intense fighting, amid conflicting versions of the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

In addition, dozen of buildings have been razed by the IDF to cover up tunnel entrances and widen the Philadelphi security corridor to make tunneling more difficult.

With the death toll mounting and Palestinians crying "massacre" once more, international pressure built on Israel to end the sustained incursion into Rafah.

But IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya’alon insisted his forces could not withdraw until they closed down all the tunnels, lest the shipments of rockets and missiles waiting in the Sinai make it into the Gaza Strip and threaten Ashkelon and even IAF aircraft overhead.

It was a rare moment of candor for a senior Israeli official. For over three-and-a-half years of the violent intifada, Israeli leaders have largely downplayed Egypt’s complicity in the tunnel smuggling operations, saying "they are doing, but could do more." Likud MK Yuval Shteinetz was perhaps the most vocal critic of this policy, but his was a lone voice.

But now the issue is coming to a head, with the title of Friday’s editorial in The Jerusalem Post bluntly charging that this week’s carnage was "Egypt's fault."

Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky also turned up the heat by claiming that 90% of the Palestinian terror arsenal in Gaza comes through the Rafah tunnels.

Egyptian officials have long denied any official involvement in the smuggling activity, while conceding some local military commanders may be taking bribes to look the other way.

In recent days, some Israeli officials have suggested that Israel and Egypt might need to amend their 1979 peace treaty to allow sufficient Egyptian forces into the area to end the smuggling operations. The treaty, however, sets no limits on the number of ground troops that can enter the border zone with small arms to deal with such a problem.

In addition, that same treaty provides for an outside observer mechanism, known today as the Multinational Force and Observers, which is tasked with monitoring the type and amount of weaponry in the border zone, among its other duties.

The MFO is a non-UN contingent of some 1,700 troops from 11 nations, led by the United States, that is deployed along the mutual boundary and in the Sinai peninsula to monitor compliance with force limitations and other security aspects of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

In an interview today with ICEJ News, the head of the MFO civilian office in Cairo, Ian Baxendale, confirmed that if Saggers and Katyushas were indeed located on the Egyptian side across from Rafah, it would be a violation of the treaty.

But when asked if he could confirm whether there were any Iranian rockets and missiles in the area, he replied, "Not to anyone’s knowledge."

"I can assure you that the MFO has been fulfilling its role properly and will keep doing so," Baxendale insisted. He said that this has included regular patrols on the Egyptian side of Rafah during the recent years of fighting in Gaza.

But he also was unaware of the widely reported claims by Ya’alon that an Iranian arms shipment was sitting in Sinai.

"You would have to fax me those reports," he said.

Asked if an MFO effort to verify the presence of the weapons shipment might help speed an end to the bloodshed in nearby Gaza, Baxendale replied, "We have not been asked by the parties to go looking for them."

David Parsons is the editor of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service.