Israel Seizes Electronics Bound for Gaza Militants
Israeli inspectors at a crossing point into the Gaza Strip stopped an attempt to smuggle in hi-tech electronics destined for Palestinian militants, the government said Monday.
Security staff at the Kerem Shalom goods crossing into southern Gaza found the equipment, banned from Gaza under Israeli restrictions, concealed on an Israeli lorry with a permit to take in consumer electronics.
The seizure was announced in a defense ministry statement which did not say when the attempt took place.
"Among items seized were infra-red cameras, communications devices and remote-control security cameras," it said.
"The suspicion is that the shipment was intended for terror organizations."
The statement said that since the beginning of 2015, more than 100 attempts "to smuggle forbidden goods and substances" had been foiled.
Israel imposes strict control over shipments from its territory into the coastal enclave, seeking to prevent the militant Islamic Hamas from getting hold of so-called "dual-use" items with the potential for building fortifications or attacking the Jewish state.
Israel controls two of the three land crossings into Gaza and maintains a total air and sea blockade.
The third land terminal, at Rafah on the border with Egypt, has been largely closed by Cairo since October, when a suicide bombing in the adjacent Sinai Peninsula killed 30 Egyptian soldiers.
The attack sparked a state of emergency and curfew in parts of North Sinai where Egyptian forces are battling an Islamist insurgency.
Source: Agence France Presse
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