Egypt says commercial truck traffic resumes with Israel through Sinai

Years-long jihadist insurgency in the peninsula severed trading there with Jewish state

El-ARISH, Egypt — The Egyptian military on Sunday said that commercial truck traffic with Israel had resumed via a border crossing in the Sinai Peninsula that had been shut down amid the jihadist insurgency there.

Brig. Gen. Tareq Younis said the first few trucks from Israel crossed over into Egypt on Sunday, and that Egyptian vehicles began bringing goods into Israel earlier this month.

The trade, mostly foodstuffs and raw materials, passed through the el-Auga route, south of Gaza and closer to central Sinai.

Egypt has been battling jihadists for years, but the Sinai-based insurgency — affiliated with the Islamic State terror group — gained strength after the 2013 overthrow of elected but divisive Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.

A picture taken on September 17, 2017, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, along the border with Egypt, shows smoke billowing from Egypt’s North Sinai. (AFP/SAID KHATIB)

Thousands of Egyptian security forces and civilians have been killed, and thousands more arrested in what critics describe as a heavy-handed security crackdown. Homes have been destroyed, and heavy restrictions imposed on the movement of people and goods.

Israel has assisted Egypt throughout its fight with the IS jihadists, and their predecessors. According to foreign media reports, this has included conducting drone strikes in the peninsula on Islamic State targets. It has also reportedly taken the form of significant intelligence sharing.

More publicly, since 2013, Israel has also allowed additional Egyptian forces into the peninsula, beyond the level permitted under the 1979 peace accord between the two countries. Heavy weapons, like tanks, artillery and attack helicopters, have been brought into Sinai to fight the Islamists, a sign that Jerusalem is not concerned those big Egyptian guns could be turned against it.

A member of the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate purporting to show Israeli-made munitions found in the rubble of an airstrike in a video released by the Amaq news agency on May 23, 2018. (screen capture, Amaq)

Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Israel was covertly carrying out a full-blown aerial campaign against IS targets in Sinai, with the blessing of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. The Israeli aircraft are reportedly often unmarked and sometimes use indirect routes in a bid to cover up the origin of the strikes.

In February, the Egyptian military launched a massive operation in Sinai as part of its efforts to oust the jihadist group from the peninsula.