IDF foils weapons smuggling attempt via Egypt
IDF forces identified an to smuggle in weapons over the Egyptian border with the aid of a hang-glider. The hang-glider was shot down and the weapons confiscated.


Overnight (Tuesday/Wednesday), the IDF identified an attempt to smuggle weapons across the Egyptian border with the aim of a hang-glider, in the area of the Paran Brigade.
The IDF shot down the glider, which crossed into Israeli territory, and found 13 weapons and additional ammo. The weapons and ammo were then confiscated by security forces.
The IDF has seized enormous amounts of weapons in its fight against Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in sweeping through southern Syria to remove or destroy weapons left behind by the now-defunct Syrian Army that operated under Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Some of these weapons are destroyed and others held. Proposals do arise from time to time for the IDF to repurpose the weapons for the army's own use, though it is unclear how often this actually happens.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharen Haskel recently proposed to send weapons confiscated from Hezbollah to Ukraine to use in its war against Russia - including offensive weapons such as anti-tank missiles.
This would be a major change in policy for Israel, which has thus far avoided even sending defensive weapons such as the Iron Dome to Ukraine for a variety of reasons.
Israeli efforts to ensure that humanitarian aid sent to Gaza does not contain any weapons has consistently run into objections from the Biden administration and other human rights groups who insist on as few delays as possible in aid delivery and always saying more aid needs to come in.
Some 600 aid trucks are entering the Gaza Strip per day in accordance with the hostage deal agreement, most of them via Israeli border crossings such as Erez and Kerem Shalom, as the Rafah crossing still needs to be renovated and rebuilt before it can be used again for heavy traffic.