9/12/13 Egypt tanks cross fence leading to Gaza
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Two Egyptian army tanks crossed an initial border fence leading to Gaza for the first time on Thursday, witnesses said, but did not enter the Palestinian territory itself.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers neither confirmed nor denied the incursion, but said no Egyptian tanks had entered the besieged Strip.
The tanks “crossed the first Egyptian border fence along the corridor between Egypt and (Gaza), and drove along the road running next to the cement wall” that Egypt built, the witnesses told AFP.
They said it was the “first time Egyptian tanks have been in this area, although they didn’t cross into the Palestinian side,” adding that soldiers on top of the tanks had masked faces.
A spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas government, Ihab al-Ghassin, told AFP that no Egyptian tanks had crossed onto the Israeli-blockaded territory.