(Jerusalem) Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Saturday by an Egyptian “policeman”, who was shot near the Egyptian border in the Negev desert, the Israeli army said, a rare incident for which the motivations of “the assailant” remain unknown.
The Egyptian army said for its part that a “member of the security forces chasing drug traffickers” had crossed a checkpoint between the two countries. According to her, there followed an “exchange of fire with the Israeli security forces which left three dead on the Israeli side”.
The Egyptian died in that clash, both sides said.
On Saturday morning, the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, shot dead, were discovered at a guard post near the Harif military base, about 100 km south of the Gaza Strip, near the border with the Egypt, an Israeli military spokesman said, saying the assailant apparently “infiltrated” from Egypt.
A hunt was then launched in search of the presumed killer, and “at noon […] Israeli soldiers identified the assailant in Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement.
Exchanges of fire followed and the assailant was killed as well as a third Israeli soldier, Ohad Dahan, 20 years old, specifies the text. A fourth Israeli soldier, a non-commissioned officer, was lightly injured and evacuated to a hospital.
One of the two soldiers killed in the first attack was a woman, Lia Ben Nun, 19, the army said. The unit responsible for patrolling the Israeli-Egyptian border is a mixed unit. The identity of the third soldier has not yet been revealed.
“Shadow areas”
“An investigation is being carried out in full cooperation with the Egyptian army,” the statement said.
The Israeli army has also opened an investigation to try to understand how the Egyptian managed to cross the barrier several meters high along this border, said a military spokesman.
He added that “grey areas” remained on the two incidents and on the motivations of the alleged assailant. Investigations are underway to determine whether other individuals have managed to cross into Israeli territory, he said.
Hours before the attack on the guard post, Israeli soldiers foiled a drug smuggling attempt at the border, seizing contraband goods worth an estimated 1.5 million shekels (about C$536,000 ), according to the military spokesman.
However, he clarified that no link had been established between this capture and the attack.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, following the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978. Many Egyptians, however, do not support this normalization.
The border between the two countries is generally quiet. However, it is the scene of regular drug smuggling attempts, which in recent years have resulted in exchanges of fire between smugglers and Israeli soldiers stationed along the border.
In 2012, the jihadist group Ansar Jerusalem claimed responsibility for an attack on the Egyptian-Israeli border that claimed the life of an Israeli soldier.