At least eight people died and dozens were left wounded after a terrorist attack in Israel on Thursday. Israeli officials claim the deadly strike was staged from Egyptian territory.
The sophisticated, three-stage assault, involving as many as 20 Islamist terrorists, took place near Eilat on Route 12, which runs close to Egypt’s Sinai border for “several dozen kilometres.” Eilat is a southern Israeli port city on the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba.
The Israelis identified “terror cells affiliated with the Palestinian Resistance Committees” in Gaza as the ones responsible for the carnage and staged a retaliatory air strike the same day that killed the cells’ leaders. Significantly and ominously for the Israelis, though, the attack showed terrorists were able to freely cross the border from Gaza into Egypt and launch their strike from Egyptian soil. This represents the opening of a new front against the Jewish state.
“It is clear that the terrorists came from Gaza and it is clear that they move freely from Gaza to the Sinai,” said an Israeli defense official.
According to an Israeli newspaper report, the terrorists first fired at a bus, injuring several people; but they only claimed their first victim when a terrorist exploded his suicide vest, killing the driver of a second bus that, fortunately, was empty. The next vehicle attacked was a car, in which four passengers were killed, while bombs were detonated near an Israeli patrol.
The well-armed attackers also fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli military helicopter and an anti-tank missile at another vehicle. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) responded with its usual rapidity and killed seven terrorists, while the Egyptian army reported shooting two more on their side of the border.
“The attacks demonstrate the weakening of Egypt’s control over the Sinai Peninsula and the expansion of terrorist activity there,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Read the rest on:
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