Israeli troops were on very high alert along the southern border with the Egyptian Sinai on Monday over fears a cell of gunmen had crossed the border into southern Israel, a security source said. The state of alert was based on “intelligence information about a cell of terrorists planning an attack” on a road which runs close to the border in the southern Negev desert, the source said.
The alert has been in place since Saturday, when the military contacted their Egyptian counterparts to pass on the information they had, he said. The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the state of alert, saying only that the military “deploys its troops in accordance with ongoing security assessments.”
ISRAEL’S NETANYAHU MOVES UP LIKUD PRIMARIES: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to bring forward to January the internal elections for his ruling right-wing Likud party, party sources said on Monday.
The decision to hold the Likud primaries on January 31 emerged late on Sunday, in a move described by the Israeli press as a “political bombshell.” “This decision was taken in light of the serious challenges which Israel is facing,” party spokeswoman Noga Katz said. Under the party’s constitution, leadership primaries must be held up to six months before general elections, which are due to take place in 2013. Netanyahu is expected to comfortably win re-election to the Likud leadership, and the move was widely seen by commentators as a bid to capitalise on his good standing in the wake of soldier Gilad Shalit’s release and his dominance within the party.
Bringing forward the primaries would also allow him to exploit the weakness of the opposition Kadima party, whose leader Tzipi Livni is facing strong internal opposition. Vice premier Silvan Shalom, who has said he would run in any leadership contest, is adamantly opposed to the plan to bring the vote forward, and is planning to take legal action to challenge the move, which his associates said was a violation of the party’s constitution, press reports said.
High alert along Israel-Egypt border
