Het route

The Het route or Khet route (Hebrew: ציר ה-ח', romanized: Tzir Ha-Het) is the name given by the Israeli security forces to a route used by terrorists and smugglers to penetrate into Israel along its southern border.[1][2] The route goes from Gaza, into the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, then back into Israel.[3][4] The name given to this route stems from the Hebrew letter Het which resembles the shape of the route.[5]

The Het route marked in red arrows

The Hebrew letter Het

The route starts from the Gaza Strip, goes through secret Gaza Strip smuggling tunnels below the Philadelphi Route into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula,[4] and then south through the Sinai peninsula to a poorly-secured area of the Israeli–Egyptian border.[6]

In 2013–2014, under el–Sisi's regime, the Egyptians took steps to secure the border in the Gaza region in response to the Sinai terror attacks. These steps included the destruction of most of the 1,200 tunnels between Gaza and Sinai.[7] Also, in late 2013, Israel completed the construction of the Egypt–Israel barrier. This had the effect of significantly reducing cross-border insurgency and smuggling from Sinai into Israel.[8]