Defense Minister Yisrael Katz ordered the IDF on Thursday to declare the Israeli-Egyptian border area a closed military zone and tighten the open-fire rules to confront the increasing drone threat, a statement from his office said on Thursday

“We are declaring war,” Katz said. “Any person who breaches the closed zone will be shot.”

Katz said that he and Shin Bet chief Dovid Zini agreed that weapons smuggling across the Egyptian border will be defined as a terrorist threat to allow security agencies to use appropriate tools to combat it.

“The smuggling of weapons by drones is part of the war in Gaza and is intended to arm our enemies—and every means must be used to stop it,” Katz added.

The order followed an emergency meeting on Wednesday night on the surge of weapons smuggling across the border, attended by senior officials from the IDF, Defense Ministry, Shin Bet, National Security Council (NSC), and Israel Police.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)