ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: DEBKAfile
08February2011 10:00amEST
GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Egypt's suspension of gas supplies to Israel after the North 
Sinai pipeline was blown up Saturday, Feb 5 has suddenly cut Israel off from 25-30 percent of its gas neds and 80 percent of Jordan's. A few hours after the blast, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq announced the gas supplied to both countries under contract would henceforth be diverted to domestic requirements.
With Egyptian gas cut off for the foreseeable future, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went into hasty non-stop consultations with ministers and energy military and security officials. Alongside the emergency declared by Israel's electricity corporation, those consultations centered on three additional facets of the crisis: The expanding occupation of North Sinai by Palestinian Hamas extremists from Gaza and anti-Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen, culminating in the gas pipeline explosion; the failure of joint Israeli and Egyptian military efforts to contain it and, thirdly, concerns that Hamas may cross into Israel and sabotage Israeli power stations or fuel reservoirs to bring about the collapse of Israel's electrical power system.
DEBKAfile reported earlier Saturday.
The pipeline supplying Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan was blown up near the North Sinai town of El Arish early Saturday Feb. 5. Egyptian state TV reported "terrorists" had carried out the attack which caused a huge explosion and fire. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu conferred urgently with Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau and energy firms over the abrupt cutoff of 25 percent of Israel's gas needs and ordered security beefed up at energy installations.
The Egyptian and Israeli accounts are contradictory. (read full report)
