Without serious aforethought, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak waved through another 3,000 Egyptian troops into North Sinai, raising their number to 4,000 and virtually scrapping the key demilitarization clause of the 1979 peace treaty. No conditions were laid down and no timeline or operational limits set, debkafile's sources report.  Israel asked the military rulers in Cairo – directly and through Washington - to deny Iranian warships passage through the Suez Canal – but was ignored.

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak phoned the Egyptian council head, Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi, Saturday night, Feb. 12, to thank him for transferring 900 men of two 18th Division battalions to Sinai to rein in the lawless rampage raging there. The Council acted within 24 hours of taking the reins of office from Hosni Mubarak. There is some speculation that the army is hiding the deposed president in a base on the Red Sea coast – far from Sharm el-Sheikh.

Friday night, Feb. 11, as Egypt celebrated Hosni Mubarak exit, Israel counted the cost of losing its most important strategic partner in the region. Thirty-two years of peace leave Israel militarily unprepared for the unknown on their 270-kilometer long southern border; no experience of desert combat; an army trained and equipped only for the hostile fronts of Iran, Lebanon's Hizballah and Syria; a dearth of intelligence about the Egyptian army and its commanders, and no clue to the new rulers' intentions.

Hamas while preparing follow-up attacks on the Sinai gas pipeline after Saturday's explosion has opened the Egyptian-Israeli border region to Al Qaeda jihadists, international smugglers and criminal gangs - all heading for the Israel border. Egypt lacks the manpower for securing the entire Sinai Peninsula. Its troops are concentrating on securing Sharm el Sheikh and the eastern bank of the Suez Canal. Hamas is left to prey on North Sinai and make it a launching pad for terror attacks on Israel.

Egyptian reinforcements reached northern Sinai Monday, Jan. 31 to hunt down Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip battling Egyptian forces for control of the territory. debkafile's sources report that the gunmen of Hamas's armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam, opened a second, Palestinian, front against the Mubarak regime on orders from Hamas' parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed by its bosses in Damascus. The Muslim Brotherhood is therefore more aggressively involved in the uprising than it would seem.

Just two weeks after Mohammed Namnam was killed in a combined Israel-US-Egyptian targeted assassination, an Israeli airborne missile struck again in Gaza City Wednesday, Nov. 17, and killed two more commanders of the Al Qaeda-linked Army of Islam. debkafile's sources name them as brothers, Islam Yasin and Muhammad Yasin, who were preparing a new wave of terrorist attacks in Sinai aimed at hitting US military targets and kidnapping Israelis vacationing in Sinai for ransom in Gaza.

An Israeli border patrol intercepted and fought off a band of armed terrorists carrying explosives as they crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian border of Sinai  opposite the Israeli desert town of Mitzpe Ramon early Wednesday, June 16. One terrorist was killed in the ensuing firefight - the rest, at least seven, fled back across the border. Investigation will try and determine if the came from Gaza or the al Qaeda cells in Sinai.