Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding answers from Egypt after an Egyptian policeman crossed Israel’s southern border through an emergency access gate and killed three Israeli combat soldiers.
“Israel sent a clear message to the Egyptian government: We expect the joint investigation to be exhaustive and thorough,” Netanyahu said.
Egypt initially said that the policeman crossed the border in pursuit of drug smugglers, who routinely use the Sinai desert to move their product into Israel. But the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that its soldiers had foiled the drug smugglers hours before they were killed, and that an IDF border post was specifically attacked.
The attack, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning, killed Sgt. Lia Ben Nun, 19; St.-Sgt. Ohad Dahan, 20; and St.-Sgt. Uri Itzhak Ilouz, 20. Ben Nun was a female combat soldier on the front lines.
As the Times of Israel noted:
An Egyptian policeman shot and killed two Israeli soldiers who were manning a guard post near the border on Saturday morning, the military said. The Israel Defense Forces said there was a further exchange of fire in the area hours later, inside Israeli territory, in which the gunman and another IDF soldier were killed.
…
Iluz and Ben Nun served as combat soldiers in the Bardelas Battalion. Dahan served in the Caracal Battalion. Both units are tasked with guarding the Egyptian border.
Dahan was killed during the later pursuit of the attacker.
Israel’s under-20 World Cup soccer team, which shocked Brazil in a 3-2 victory Saturday, honored the victims of the attack:
Egypt expressed condolences to Israel over the killings. Israel and Egypt have been at peace for more than 40 years. But there are still occasional tensions at the border.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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