06/03/2023 2:02 pm (act. 06/03/2023 02:10 pm)
Two Israeli soldiers and a woman were killed in an armed attack on the Egyptian border on Saturday. The assailant was an Egyptian policeman, the Israeli army said. He was shot dead in an exchange of fire. Initially, it was unclear how he managed to cross the heavily guarded border fence. The Israeli military continued to comb the area at the site of the incident in Har Kharif.
Israeli army spokesman Richard Hecht told reporters that a major drug smuggling operation across the Egyptian border was thwarted overnight. However, it remains unclear whether this is directly related to the fatal incident. A soldier and a woman stood guard in a lonely spot on the border. They were likely shot early in the morning.
The army only noticed this when they didn’t report it over the radio, Hecht said. Then their bodies were found and the search for the perpetrator or perpetrators began. Then there was an exchange of fire with the alleged perpetrator of the crime, who was armed with a Kalashnikov. A third Israeli soldier was also killed. Hecht said they were working closely with Egyptian authorities.
Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979. However, there have been several deadly attacks by militant groups on the border between the two countries in the past. In a bomb attack on a bus in the resort town of Taba, on the border with Israel, in 2014, three tourists from South Korea and the driver of the Egyptian bus were killed.
A devastating attack on a military checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula in August 2012 killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. The attackers then attempted to breach the nearby Israeli border with two captured military vehicles. They were stopped by Israeli security forces. The Israeli military killed five assassins. The bodies of three other assassins were found on the Egyptian side.