Settler group planning to re-establish Gaza bloc
Nadav Shragai, 5/8/08
The Homesh First Movement is expected to announce Tuesday that settlement groups are planning to return to settlements in Gush Katif evacuated during the August 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The core settlement groups hope to return the minute it is acceptable from a security standpoint, explained Boaz Haetzni, one of the leaders of the movement. Haetzni told Haaretz that as soon as the Israel Defense Forces reenters the Gaza Strip, “and in our estimation the ‘big operation’ is only a matter of time, we will follow them in. We will not ask for permission from anyone. The [settlement] groups will be ready, and this evening we will start an organized sign-up for them. These core groups will do exactly what the group that reestablished Kfar Etzion did after 1967. They will return to the lands where they existed in the past, and will rebuild them,” said Haetzni.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1008454.html
Jerusalem offers Cairo help rebuilding wall on Gaza border
Barak Ravid; 5/8/08
Israel has offered to help Egypt build a technologically advanced wall on the Gaza Strip border, an Israeli defense source said yesterday. Since the border breach between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in January this year the Egyptians have made only rudimentary repairs. They fear another border breach and Palestinian invasion of Sinai, and are therefore amenable to building an effective border on the “Philadelphi route,” especially west of Rafah, where there are still several holes in the fence. Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad and a senior Shin Bet official are to go to Cairo next week to discuss steps against arms smuggling to Gaza with Egypt’s intelligence chief, General Omar Suleiman, and other Egyptian defense officials.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1008471.html