A rocket attack was launched at one of Israel’s major cities on Thursday. Eilat, one of Israel’s vacation spots and a prime location for visitors during Passover, which begins tomorrow, was targeted in the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: "We are seeing now with Eilat that the Sinai Peninsula is turning into a terror zone. We cannot grant immunity to terror, we must fight against it."
IDF Military Intelligence chief General Aviv Cochavi, speaking after the attack, said the attack, “ . . . is merely an expression of the substantial change going on throughout the region . . . more than 10 terrorist infrastructures have been uncovered and foiled in the last two months, while terror organizations continue to establish and strengthen themselves.”
Meanwhile, the Egyptian police chief for South Sinai, Major-General Mahmoud El-Hefnawy, denied reports of the rocket attack being launched from the Sinai, describing the security situation in the governorate as excellent.
Since the ousting of Hosni Mubarak last year, Israeli officials have been warning of trouble brewing in the Sinai, which was ceded by Israel to Egypt in the 1979 Camp David accords. Israel has been building a 150 mile long electronic fence along the Israel-Egypt border to keep terrorists from entering Israel; last year, terrorists from the Sinai crossed the border, ambushing and killing eight Israeli civilians and wounding twenty others.
Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged that rockets were a different matter. Israel’s short-range rocket interceptor, the Iron Dome, has been used to defend Israel from Gaza, and may be used to combat rockets from the Sinai. With the advent of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt, how much more security will Israel need – and why is the United States kowtowing to the Brotherhood even as their allies fire rockets at Israel?
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