JERUSALEM: An Israeli military court has jailed five soldiers for trafficking arms and drugs across the Egyptian border which they had been assigned to patrol, military sources said on Sunday.

The five Bedouin trackers, all of them career soldiers, received prison terms of between one and seven years, the sources said.

They had been detained seven months ago following a police investigation.

Israel’s 200 kilometre long desert border with Egypt is the focus of extensive trafficking of people, including both African asylum-seekers and east European women, as well as of drugs and weapons.—AFP