New Israeli plan to secure Egypt's borders

Hebrew newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported that the Israeli military recently started to increase the number of its forces along the borders with Sinai, Egypt, by resuming the infrastructural work on the southern border fence. Moreover, the Israeli army will implement a new plan including an elite infantry force, sophisticated weapons systems, and a complete change of perspective. The paper pointed on Tuesday that those actions come after the rising of tension in the Israeli military following the events in Sinai, where Israel decided to deploy “elite units” of its forces. Yediot Ahronot also said that the Egyptian military's stance on Sinai has radically changed during the last year, entailing that the south-western Israeli borders with Egypt have become “more volatile.” The construction of the border fence is set to be completed by the end of the year. The Israeli army is already planning the second stage of the border fortification, which will move the military positions a few kilometers to the east inside Israeli territory and will make them rear positions, as they are in the Gaza Strip. The positions will be replaced with posts along the border and will be manned in accordance to the changing security assessments in the area. The Israeli army's Gaza Division is planning on placing long-range remote control machine gun systems on the posts, which will be handled by soldiers from an operations room. The Israeli army is concerned about “armed cells” in Sinai, which, according to them, could use an advanced type of missiles that could target Israeli vehicles driving around 4 km away from the Egyptian borders.