Egypt "find" 190 antiaircraft missiles and more in Sinai

Arsenal including antitank charges intended for Gaza discovered by police in peninsula

Ali Waked - Published: 08.28.10 / Israel News

Egypt has prevented a shipment of antiaircraft missiles and explosives from entering Gaza. Security forces uncovered stores of ammunition in the northern Sinai Peninsula, probably intended to be smuggled into the Strip.

Palestinian news agency Maan reported that Egyptian police exposed a hidden arms arsenal containing explosives, in a desolate area near at the center of the peninsula.

The storage contained 100 antiaircraft missiles, which were meant to be smuggled into the Strip through a network of tunnels. Egyptian authorities also seized 90 antiaircraft rockets in another arms cache in the central city of al-Hasna.

Egyptian forces raided Rafah on its Egyptian side, as well as the town of Sheikh Zuwayid, where additional arsenals with explosives and automatic weapons were uncovered.

According to the report, one of the weapons cache contained 10 antitank demolition charges, which were also designated for the Gaza Strip.

At the beginning of the month, five rockets were launched from Sinai towards Eilat and Aqaba. A Jordanian citizen was killed after one of the rockets landed near a hotel in the southern resort city.

Egypt initially denied that the rockets were launched from its territory, but later an Egyptian security official admitted that "Palestinian militants from Gaza were responsible for the rocket attack."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly accused Hamas of the attack.

A few days later, Egyptian authorities located two trucks that were used by the suspected militants.

Following the incident, Egypt bumped up its security and dispatched police forces to the south of Sinai, in an effort to locate the Palestinian terrorist cell responsible for the attack.