A man identified by Israeli and Egyptian officials as an Egyptian security officer entered Israeli territory on Saturday and killed three Israeli soldiers in two separate shooting incidents in a remote desert area between the two countries, according to an initial Israeli investigation. Military.
Many details remained unclear hours after the events unfolded, but Israeli military officials said they were treating the incident on the normally quiet border as a rogue attack and that an investigation was being conducted in cooperation with the Egyptian army.
The Israeli and Egyptian militaries gave different versions of the details of the episode.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said the sequence of events began at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday when Israeli soldiers foiled a major attempt to smuggle drugs across the border, including placing ladders on the border fence. They seized about $400,000 worth of the shipment, said spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht.
Later, around 8 p.m., when Israeli soldiers at the border post failed to answer calls on their radios, the commander went to the scene and found the bodies of a male soldier and a female soldier, Colonel Hecht said. He is believed to have been killed an hour or two ago.
More soldiers arrived to search the area and around noon they located the suspect in Israeli territory, the colonel said. In the ensuing exchange of gunfire, a third Israeli soldier was killed, allegedly wearing fatigues worn by Egyptian border guards. An Israeli non-commissioned officer was lightly wounded in the firefight.
The Egyptian army said in a statement that early in the morning, a member of its security forces deployed to secure the border breached a security fence while chasing drug smugglers. They engaged in a firefight that left three Israeli soldiers dead and two others injured and an Egyptian officer dead, the army said.
The Egyptian statement did not account for the hours between the smuggling attempt and the shooting described by the Israeli military.
The Israeli military said the attacker’s affiliation and motives were not immediately clear, and officials were investigating whether he was acting alone or on behalf of an organization. In a statement, the Egyptian army offered “sincere condolences to the families of the deceased” and indicated that legal action would be taken against whoever was involved.
Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty 40 years ago, and Israeli officials and analysts stressed that strategic ties between the two countries are unlikely to be affected by Saturday’s events. Israeli and Egyptian liaison officers are in constant contact and will continue to stay in touch as events unfold, Colonel Hecht said.
On Saturday evening, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Galant spoke by phone with his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Zaki, and praised Mr. Zaki for his “commitment and cooperation in investigating the incident.” .
Israeli and Egyptian officials have coordinated closely across the border in recent years, particularly after the rise of an Islamic State affiliate in the vast deserts of the Sinai Peninsula. The affiliate shot down a Russian passenger jet in 2015 and frequently attacks Egyptian security forces.
Although the desolate, mountainous region has long been known for drug-trafficking activity, deadly security incidents along Israel’s border with Egypt are increasingly rare, with the last major attacks occurring over a decade ago.
In August 2011, eight Israelis were killed in a multi-pronged attack from the Egyptian border near the Israeli resort of Eilat. In that episode, militants opened fire on an Israeli bus on a ring road along the border and, minutes later, detonated a bomb next to an Israeli army patrol. The militants then fired an anti-tank missile and rammed into a private vehicle, killing its passengers.
After chaos ensued, Israeli forces killed three of the attackers who had crossed into Israeli territory. Israeli security forces killed five Egyptian officers chasing the attackers on the Egyptian side – bringing Israel and Egypt to the brink of a diplomatic crisis.
Vivian Yee Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting from Cairo and Jerusalem.
