In recent years Israel has conducted numerous drone strikes with Cairo’s blessing on terrorists operating in the Egyptian Sinai, according to a former senior Israeli official.
Bloomberg quoted the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Separately, Major-General Yair Golan told the news agency that when it comes to intelligence sharing and combatting terrorism “the level of cooperation is something we’ve never experienced before,” referring to Egypt-Israel cooperation.
“It’s not about love, it’s not about common values. I wouldn’t describe it as the relationship we have with the United States of America, but I think it’s a good starting point.”
Mohamed Kamal, a former lawmaker and a political science professor at Cairo University, added, “There is definitely a high level of cooperation that could be unprecedented, especially in the field of combating terrorism.”
Both Israel and Egypt are threatened by Sinai militants, especially jihadists who operate under the banner of the Islamic State.
Breitbart Jerusalem has repeatedly reported on the growth of IS in Sinai and the group’s collaboration with Gazan terrorists.
Last November, Breitbart Jerusalem published exclusive images of what jihadists say was an IS training camp in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula where some Gazan terrorists took part in training.
Last week, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that Hamas arrested six jihadists who returned from fighting for IS in Sinai.
The six, who returned to Gaza separately, were sent by IS’s Sinai franchise to review the feasibility of setting up an IS chapter in the Strip that would attempt to unify all currently active Salafi organizations under the banner of IS, a Hamas official said.
The Sinai has become one of the region’s top IS zones. Breitbart Jerusalem reported that, in the month of April alone, 12 jihadists departed Gaza to join the Islamic State in the Sinai.
The recruitment of Gazan jihadists by IS in Sinai comes after a top jihadist official threatened in a recent exclusive interview on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” that it is only a matter of time before the Islamic State’s branch in the Sinai carries out a “big operation” in the Israeli resort town of Eilat and other parts of southern Israel.
IS has also set its sights on countering Hamas in Gaza. Last year, Hamas engaged in deadly clashes with IS supporters who challenged Hamas rule.
Last July, the Information Bureau of the Aleppo Province, affiliated with IS, released a video entitled “A message to our folks in Jerusalem,” in which ISIS members originally from Gaza declared war on Israel and Hamas.
In the video, IS member and Gaza native Abu Azzam al-Ghazzawim delivered a strongly-worded warning to what he called the “tyrants of Hamas”:
“You are nothing in our reckoning. You, Fatah, and all the secularists, we count you as nothing. Allah willing, we shall uproot the state of the Jews. You are nothing but froth that will be gone as we move in. Allah willing, Gaza will be governed by Shariah despite you.”
Abu Qatadah al-Filistini, an IS member who leads a faction in Aleppo, Syria, made an appearance in the video and called on all “monotheists in Gaza to join the convoy of the Muhajidin and to join the State of the Caliphate.”
Abu Qatadah accused Hamas of “sliding gradually into apostasy, a slide that started with the demolition of the Ibn Taymiyah Mosque.”
“It is a movement that does not seek to govern according to Shariah but seeks to appease Iran and America, the heads of apostasy.”
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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