CAIRO, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Egypt rejected on Monday the allegations made by Israel regarding the smuggling of weapons, ammunition, and explosives into the Gaza Strip from Egyptian territory.
In a statement, Chairman of Egypt's State Information Service Diaa Rashwan refuted the recent statements by Israeli officials regarding "the smuggling of weapons, explosives, ammunition, and their components into Gaza from the Egyptian territory through several methods, including tunnels on both sides of the borders."
Rashwan said a 5-km-long buffer zone was built along the border with Gaza, and more than 1,500 tunnels, which made Egypt suffer a lot during fierce confrontations with terrorist groups in Sinai from 2013 to 2020, had been destroyed.
The official dismissed claims of smuggling through aid trucks at the Rafah crossing as "empty and ridiculous," emphasizing that these trucks undergo inspection by Israeli authorities before entering Gaza.
He said Israel continues "marketing these lies" in a bid to provide legitimacy for its attempt to occupy the "Philadelphia Corridor," the border area between Gaza and Egypt, which violates the security agreements and protocols signed between it and Egypt.
Rashwan warned that any Israeli move in this direction would lead to a serious threat to Egypt-Israel relations.
Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has for years been a key regional peacemaker in the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ■
