On Saturday, an Egyptian security officer crossed into Israeli territory and shot three Israeli soldiers in an isolated desert area along the border. The incident took place in a zone known for drug-trafficking activities. The officer involved was subsequently killed, as was another soldier during the exchange of gunfire. The Israeli military is treating the event as a rogue attack and is conducting a joint investigation with the Egyptian Army. Although details have been murky, the two sides offered different accounts of the episode. The Israeli military claimed to have foiled a drug-smuggling attempt, which involved ladders placed along the border fence. Then, when soldiers at a border post failed to respond to calls, a commander found two dead soldiers. Later, a suspect was tracked down, and a third Israeli soldier died during the ensuing shootout.
The Egyptian Army offered a different version of the events, claiming that one of its officers had breached the border fence while chasing drug smugglers, which led to an exchange of fire that killed three Israeli soldiers and injured two, as well as the officer himself. The Egyptian statement did not account for the hours between the smuggling attempt and the shootings that the Israeli military outlined. The motives of the assailant, who was wearing the uniform of an Egyptian border guard, are still unclear.
Although lethal incidents on Israel’s border with Egypt are rare, several such attacks have taken place over the years. In the latest significant security breach before this latest attack, eight Israelis were killed in a multipronged assault in August 2011 near the Israeli resort of Eilat, when militants from across the Egyptian border fired on an Israeli bus before detonating a bomb near an Israeli army patrol. The militants then fired an anti-tank missile, destroyed a private vehicle, and killed passengers. During the ensuing chaos, Israeli forces killed three of the attackers who had crossed the border. Israeli security forces also killed five Egyptian officers who were chasing down the attackers on the Egyptian side, bringing the two neighboring countries’ diplomatic ties to the brink of a crisis.
Israel and Egypt have been bound by a peace agreement for over 40 years and regularly coordinate their security efforts on the border. Even as events on Saturday disrupted the prevailing order, the Israeli military claims that Egyptian liaison officers maintained close contact throughout the incident.
