Once peaceful, the Israel-Egypt border has become the IDF’s most volatile frontier
Friday’s deadly attack further illustrates how unstable the Sinai region has become, a situation that endangers not only the recent calm between Israel and Gaza, but also the already strained relations between Jerusalem and Cairo.
What was once a border of peace is now the Israel Defense Forces’ most raging frontier: The incident Friday afternoon on the Israel-Egypt border, near Harif Mountain, is the third serious incident in the region in the past three months. The previous incidents included the killing of an Israeli-Arab who was working on the construction of the border fence in June, and the August terrorist attack on both sides of the border at the Kerem-Shalom crossing.
The three terrorists killed on Friday following a quick response by the IDF forces, were on their way to a “killing spree,” the IDF said. The arms they were carrying – an explosive belt, AK-47 rifles and an RPG rocket launcher – suggest that they were targeting the border fence construction workers and the IDF force securing them.
The fact that a fence has yet to be erected in the area made it easy to infiltrate Israel. Ironically, it is the construction itself that draws the attention of terrorist organizations, since the workers are relatively exposed. Even with the completion of the construction – the erecting of the fence near the southern city of Eilat is to be concluded by 2013 – these attack attempts are expected to continue. There is no fence that cannot be breached, and, of course, the fence is useless when faced with rocket attacks on Eilat.
The identity of the terrorists has yet to be determined. Past incidents suggest there is a high probability that the terrorists belong to an extreme Islamic organization. However, in this case, it could also be a local initiative by fundamentalist Bedouin from Sinai, carried out with support from extreme factions in the Gaza Strip.
Alerts warning of attacks from Sinai into Israel are received on a daily basis. It was just Wednesday when the Israeli Air Force attacked and killed two Islamic activists in Rafah, while they were preparing to launch an attack into Israel, apparently through Sinai.
Sinai is now a region of worrisome instability. The attacks carried out from the Egyptian side of the border are endangering the very relative calm which exists in recent months between Israel and Gaza, but also the already fragile relations between Jerusalem and Cairo.
Following the attack on the Kerem-Shalom crossing, in which Islamic extremists killed 17 Egyptian policemen, Cairo declared a wide-scale operation aimed to exterminate terrorist infrastructure in Sinai. As of this moment, Jerusalem believes this move has accomplishment very little.
Reports published in the past week tell of daily clashes between the Egyptian military and armed militias in Sinai; but in most cases those are the terrorist cells who are taking the initiative. On Wednesday, the Egyptian army raised the alert level, fearing such an attack.
