Commander of the IDF Southern Command, Major Genernal Eliezer Toledano, isat the scene of the deadly clashes on the Egyptian border. Via (@manniefabian) account on Twitter.
On June 3, three soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were killed and non-commissioned officer was wounded in a unusual attack along the border with Egypt.
Initially, the IDF said that two soldiers manning a guard post between Mount Sagi and Mount Harif in the Negev desert were shot and killed by a gunman who managed to infiltrate into Israel from Egypt. The military didn’t identify the two slain soldiers, a male and a female. The soldiers were likely members of the mixed-gender Bardelas Battalion that is tasked with guarding the border with Egypt.
The IDF later said that there was a further exchange of fire in the same area, which resulted in the suspected gunman and another soldier being killed. The identity of the third slain soldier was not revealed.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the male soldier and female soldier were found dead by an officer in their post after they did not answer calls on the radio in the early morning. Later in the afternoon, clashes broke out near the post, as Israeli troops were carrying out searches for the suspected attacker.
Hagari speculated that the gunman who was killed in the afternoon clash was responsible for the deadly early attack in the morning.
“During an encounter with a terrorist in Israeli territory, a short while ago, an exchange of fire developed. Troops and commanders engaged [the suspect] and shot and killed him,” the IDF said in a statement.
One soldier was killed and a non-commissioned officer was lightly wounded during the clash with the attacker, the IDF added.
Later, the IDF revealed that the gunman was an Egyptian policeman. Reports in the Arab media suggest that the policeman carried out the attack on his own for ideological reasons.
The Egyptian Ministry of Defense has not commented on the deadly border attack, yet. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1979, ending decades of war. Since then, the security situation along their joint border has been stable.
It is safe to assume that the attack was a direct result of the Israeli crackdown on Palestinians in Jerusalem city and the West Bank as well as the IDF’s recent military operation against Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of 33 people in the Palestinian enclave.
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