Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Thursday said he instructed the army to turn the area at the border with Egypt into a closed military zone to combat weapons smuggling via drones.<\/p>\n
“I instructed the IDF (military) to turn the area adjacent to the Israel\u2013Egypt border into a closed military zone and to amend the rules of engagement accordingly in order to combat the drone threat that endangers the country’s security,” Katz said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Weapon smuggling via drones is part of the war in Gaza and is intended to arm our enemies, and all possible measures must be taken to stop it,” he added.<\/p>\n
Israel and Egypt share a border that spans approximately 200 kilometres (124 miles).<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it identified a drone that “crossed from the west into Israeli territory in an attempt to smuggle weapons”.<\/p>\n
It said troops intercepted the drone, which was carrying eight guns.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, it said it thwarted another smuggling attempt after intercepting a drone carrying 10 pistols which had “crossed from the eastern border” into Israeli territory.<\/p>\n
Israel is bordered by Jordan to the east.<\/p>\n
“Today we declare war on those involved in the smuggling — and anyone who breaches the forbidden area will be targeted,” Katz said Thursday.<\/p>\n
In a post on X, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir praised Katz for taking the decision and for “recognising that the trafficking that takes place there serves terrorist objectives”.<\/p>\n
acc\/jd\/jsa<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Thursday said he instructed the army to turn the area at the border with Egypt into a closed military zone to combat weapons smuggling via drones. “I instructed the IDF (military) to turn the area adjacent to the Israel\u2013Egypt border into a closed military zone and to amend the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[95,607,93,146],"class_list":["post-17042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional","tag-conflict","tag-egypt","tag-israel","tag-palestinians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17045,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17042\/revisions\/17045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}