Netanyahu: No need to amend Egypt-Israel treaty

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he does not believe his country should amend its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Speaking in a ministerial forum of his Likud party prior to the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Netanyahu stressed the importance of keeping the treaty unchanged, according to a government official who was in the meeting but did not want his name used because of the sensitivity of the issue. According to the official, Netanyahu noted that the treaty has successfully served both the Israelis and the Egyptians for over 30 years. Israel's border with Egypt along the Sinai Peninsula was the target of a deadly attack on August 18 when a group of militants engaged in a string of terror strikes on buses, civilian vehicles and soldiers 20 kilometers north of the resort city of Eilat, Israel, leaving eight people dead. At least three Egyptian security troops were killed later the same day. An Egyptian military official said Israeli forces may have been targeting militants near Egypt's border with Gaza when they struck and killed the Egyptian security personnel. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak issued a statement vowing that Israel would conduct a military investigation, followed by a joint examination with the Egyptian military, of the incident. "We regret the deaths of members of the Egyptian security forces during the terror attack on the Israeli-Egyptian border," Barak said. "The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty has great importance and much strategic value for the stability of the Middle East." Under the 1979 Camp David Agreement signed by Egypt and Israel, the Sinai Peninsula is to remain a demilitarized zone, but parties may increase forces in the restricted zones in case of a national threat if agreed to by both parties. The accord is considered to be of tremendous strategic importance to Israel and Netanyahu's comments come just days after Barak made a similar point. In a CNN interview Thursday, Barak downplayed reports that Egypt would unilaterally beef up its military presence in the Sinai Peninsula. "I don't think that that is needed. When they need to enter more units, they ask us, and we agree to it. We see the necessity there. I think that Sinai as a buffer zone is an important element because it is practically demilitarized in many ways," Barak said. In recent weeks, there have also been attacks on a pipeline used to export gas from Egypt into Israel and other attacks that saw several Egyptian police officers kidnapped and killed. No group has claimed responsibility. Earlier this month, Israel allowed Egypt to move military personnel into the peninsula over and above the amount spelled out by 1979 treaty. The additional forces allowed the Egyptian army and police forces to launch an anti-terror operation in Sinai against what they called "militant Islamist groups." Egyptian police said they found hand grenades, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition in the operation. The head of Israeli security in North Sinai, Gen. Saleh al Masry, told CNN that militant groups became active in the region during the revolution that led to the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Masry's investigation found that "al Qaeda has been funding and recruiting cells in Sinai" including members of a group joined by Palestinians from the Islamic Army. "Al Qaeda is present in Sinai, mainly in the area of Sakaska close to Rafah," a general in Egypt's intelligence service told CNN.