Israel Declares Border With Egypt ‘Closed Military Zone’ Over Growing Drone Threat

Illustrative image. (Israeli Defense Forces)

Defense Minister Israel Katz said on November 6 that he had instructed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to declare the Israel-Egypt border area a “closed military zone” over growing drone threat.

A day earlier, Katz held a meeting a day earlier with senior officials from the IDF, police, and the Shin Bet security agency on the matter.

Attempts to smuggle weapons and drugs over the Egyptian border using drones have increased since last year, despite the IDF expanding its control there after taking over the area of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

A large multirotor drone carrying eight handguns was shot down by the IDF over the border late on November 1. This was the fifth such attempt to be reported by Hebrew media in recent weeks, specifically since the start of October, with three of the previous four attempts also involving weapons, namely assault rifles.

During the high-level meeting on the matter, Katz “instructed the IDF to turn the area adjacent to the border into a closed military zone and to adjust the rules of engagement in order to strike any unauthorized party that penetrates into the prohibited area, in order to hit the operators and smugglers of the drones,” according to a statement released by his office.

The statement also said that the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense Research & Development and the Israeli Air Force will develop new “technological solutions” to counter the drone threat, and the National Security Council will assist with changing licensing requirements and legislative amendments regarding the use, purchase, and possession of drones.

The defense minister also spoke with Shin Bet chief David Zini on the matter, and it was agreed that the security agency will “define the issue of weapon smuggling threats via drones on the Israel–Egypt border as a terrorist threat,” which will enable security bodies to use “appropriate tools to combat the threat,” the office added.

Separately on November 5, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir instructed the military to focus efforts and resources on countering the threat.

In addition to the increase in smuggling attempts with multirotor drones, Israel faced an increase in attacks with fixed-wing suicide drones from the direction of Egypt in the weeks before the ceasefire in Gaza entered into effect early in October. Of course, all of these attacks were launched by the Houthis from Yemen.

The establishment of a close military zone along the border is guaranteed to trigger Egypt, which has already expanded its military presence there significantly since the start of the war in Gaza. Cairo will not likely dial back its deployment along the border any time soon, despite facing growing criticism from Israel over the matter.

The war in Gaza has clearly failed to end all security threats to Israel from the southern front. These threats will keep some of the IDF’s capabilities tied down there for the foreseeable future, slightly limiting its ability to address other threats on other fronts, especially in the north.

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