“Don’t expect Egypt to be your policeman in Gaza,” the recently-appointed Mohammed Asim Ibrahim was quoted as saying in an interview with the right-wing Jerusalem Post newspaper.

“Egypt will not play this role. This is basically an Israeli problem and an Israeli question (which) you have to solve yourselves,” he added.

However, the envoy said Egypt could better control smuggling across the Gaza-Egypt border if Cairo was allowed to deploy more troops in the area following the withdrawal of all Israeli soldiers and settlers.

“Due to the peace treaty we don’t have enough troops on the ground to take responsibility for (the smugglers). If we have extra troops we can have extra responsibility,” he was quoted as saying.

Israel is set to authorise the deployment of two battalions of lightly armed Egyptian border guards along the Philadelphi corridor, which skirts Gaza’s southern border, to clamp down on weapons smuggling after the pullout.

However, the deployment would require an amendment to the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, which declares the entire Sinai peninsula a demilitarised zone and imposes strict limitations on any military build-up.

Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically opposed any Egyptian deployment, citing fears of Cairo rearmament efforts.

But Ibrahim dismissed such fears as baseless, telling the Post that both sides were continuing to thrash out the implications of a wider Egyptian deployment.

“I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I have been at peace with your for the last 25 years and I have never violated it,”  Ibrahim said. “I have no intention whatsoever of going to war with you.”

Ibrahim took up his duties as ambassador in March after a four-year diplomatic hiatus between the two countries, following the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000.

Israel is to withdraw all soldiers and more than 8,000 Jewish settlers living in the Gaza Strip and four northern West Bank settlements in a 10-week process beginning in mid-August.