Egypt, attack on border post
At least 15 dead, Israel bombs

CAIRO – At least 15 Egyptian border guards were killed in an attack on the border with Israel in the Sinai. A group of armed men dressed as Bedouins from Sinai arrived in two vehicles and opened fire on the Egyptian police station. There would also be seven wounded. The immediate reaction of Israel, which attacked the two vehicles with aviation, causing at least one to explode. Members of the commando, which according to the Mena agency came from the Gaza strip, would have been able to penetrate into Israeli territory. According to other sources, the attackers took possession of an armored vehicle and another vehicle of the border police with whom they tried to reach Israel, but were stopped by planes of the Jewish state.

The authorities in Cairo have decided to close the Rafah crossing, which connects the Gaza Strip with Egypt, on an “open-ended” basis. And President Mohamed Morsi called for an urgent meeting with the military council.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak once again asked Cairo officials to act more resolutely in Sinai to restore order. “The modus operandi of the attackers returns to raise the need – he observed in a press release – for a determined action by Egypt in order to restore security and prevent terrorism from Sinai”. Barak also congratulated the Israeli armed forces who tonight, in his opinion, “foiled an attack that could have caused numerous casualties”.

The attack took place not far from Karm Abou Salem, the border point between Egypt and Israel. The Sinai, which is home to the most renowned and economically rewarding tourist resorts in Egypt, on the Red Sea, is populated by Bedouin populations that have been marginalized in the years of Mubarak’s power, and security in the area has been greatly reduced after the fall of the regime. Even the pipeline that crosses the north of the peninsula to feed Israel and Jordan has been repeatedly the target of attacks in recent months, and several tourists have been briefly seized by the Bedouins. Last month two Egyptian soldiers were killed by Islamist activists, some fifteen kilometers from the Gaza strip.

Meanwhile, the state of maximum alert has been proclaimed in the Neghev area near the Gaza Strip following the launch of dozens of Palestinian rockets against Israeli civilian settlements. There is no news of victims so far.

(05 August 2012)