CAIRO - Israel and Egypt are close to an agreement on Egyptian security presence along their border as Israelis prepare to remove settlements from Gaza and return the area to Palestinian control, officials said Monday.

Under a proposal, Egypt would send 200 Egyptian military experts into the Gaza Strip to aid Palestinian officials, said the Israeli officials who visited Egypt.

"We're now very close to implement this understanding between Israel and Egypt," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told reporters Monday — a day after the Israeli Cabinet approved in principle Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip by 2005.

Amira Aron, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official, told The Associated Press that the agreement would put an additional 100 Egyptian police along the Egyptian side of the border.

The agreement, she said, also involved Egypt sending 200 military experts into Gaza to help Palestinians in organizing their security services.

Mohammed Bassiouni, a former Egyptian ambassador to Israel, told AP that what Aron referred to as 100 additional police officers would likely be soldiers or special forces carrying heavier weapons than the light arms now carried by Egyptian policemen in the border region.

Bassiouni, a member of Egypt's parliament, said Egypt has 19,000 soldiers and 3,000 policemen in Sinai.

Egyptian officials familiar with the talks said discussions centered on shifting 1,000 border guards already in the Sinai peninsula north, closer to the border.

The Egyptians also want an international presence in Gaza, the nature of which is under discussion, the Egyptian officials said on condition of anonymity.

After meeting with Shalom, Egyptian presidential adviser Osama El-Baz said: "We have a certain vision about the role that Egypt could take to improve the situation so there would be stability in the Palestinian territories."

Egyptians and other Arabs, frustrated by violence in the Palestinian areas, have criticized Egypt for working with Israel on security issues.

"What is exactly going on?" Abdallah El-Senawi, editor of the Egyptian opposition weekly Al-Arabi, wrote on Sunday.

Egypt withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv shortly after intense Palestinian-Israeli clashes erupted in late 2000, accusing Israel of unnecessarily harsh measures against the Palestinians. The ambassador has yet to return.

Editor’s Note: Cairo-based Associated Press reporter Salah Nasrawi contributed to this story.