The Egyptian Cairo News Channel reported that the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Army, Lieutenant General Ahmed Fathi Khalifa, made a surprise visit today, Thursday, to inspect the security situation on the border with the Gaza Strip.
The National Media Authority (governmental) reported that Lieutenant General Khalifa “inspected the security measures on the northeastern strategic direction, as the tour began by passing by the forces tasked with securing the Rafah land crossing.”
According to the Authority’s report on its website, “The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces stressed that the main mission of the Armed Forces is to preserve the country’s borders in all strategic directions.”
He added, “The men of the armed forces are capable of defending the borders of the homeland, generation after generation,” stressing “the importance of having knowledge and will and maintaining high physical fitness to ensure the implementation of all tasks with high professionalism. He also checked on the living and administrative conditions of the combatant individual.”
The inspection tour was attended by the Commander of the Border Guard Forces, the Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Authority, the Acting Chief of the Military Intelligence Authority, the Commander of the Second Field Army, the commanders of the Special Forces, and a number of commanders of the Armed Forces.
Netanyahu’s Lie
Coinciding with the tour of the Egyptian Chief of Staff in Sinai, Cairo News Channel quoted a high-level Egyptian source today as saying that the past months have proven that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not care about the return of Israeli detainees alive as long as this conflicts with his personal goals and interests.
The source added, “Netanyahu’s statements lack realism and he seeks through them to hold other countries responsible for his failure to achieve his goals in the Gaza Strip, which witnessed genocide.”
The source explained that “the Israeli Prime Minister’s promotion of arms smuggling from Egypt is another lie to justify his government’s failure to control arms smuggling from Israel to the Gaza Strip,” stressing Israel’s failure to eliminate the arms smuggling mafia from Kerem Abu Salem to the Gaza Strip.
The source considered that the Israeli government “has completely lost its credibility internally and externally, and is still continuing to promote its lies to cover up its failure.”
He also warned that Netanyahu “is paving the way through his claims of smuggling weapons from Egypt to declare his security and political failure and the failure to find the hostages or achieve any military victory in Gaza and the West Bank,” stressing “the parties’ dissatisfaction with the Israeli Prime Minister’s continued failure to reach a truce agreement.”
It is noteworthy that Netanyahu pledged to remain in the Philadelphi Corridor, considering this corridor “the oxygen pipe for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and it must be cut off. The Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor made Gaza a major threat to us, and was tantamount to opening the way for weapons and other things to enter Hamas,” he said.
Egypt rejected Netanyahu’s accusations that it turned a blind eye to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza via the Philadelphi Corridor, and considered it an attempt to obstruct the achievement of a ceasefire in the Strip.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Netanyahu’s statements “attempted to use Egypt’s name to distract Israeli public opinion, obstruct reaching a ceasefire deal and exchange of detainees, and obstruct the mediation efforts being undertaken by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States.”