New Details Emerge in Egyptian Soldier Border Incident with Israel

New details were revealed in the incident of the Egyptian soldier, Mohamed Salah, who carried out the border operation, which killed 3 Israelis and injured two others, about two weeks ago.

An Israeli military delegation visited Cairo the day before yesterday, Sunday, which included the commander of the southern region, Eliezer Toldano, the head of the International Relations Brigade, Brigadier General Avi Deverin, and the head of the activation brigade in the Intelligence Agency, according to what was revealed by the Israeli army spokesman, Avichai Adraee.

Adraei added that they continued the joint investigation with Egyptian army officials about the incident, noting that the two sides expressed their commitment to conducting an in-depth investigation and finding the truth.

Our borders were not secured.

In a related context, officials in the Southern Military Command of the Israeli army admitted that the borders with Egypt were not sufficiently secured, and that the soldiers there are burdened with long guard shifts of up to 12 hours straight, which is physically and militarily exhausting.

While the results of the initial investigation showed a series of failures in the Israeli army, noting that the results showed that two recruits were only 200 meters away from hearing the gunfire during the incident, and they did not report because they believed it was wind, according to what was reported by the Israeli Channel Seven.

A few days ago, the Hebrew Channel 12 revealed that the Israeli army decided to replace the military battalion on the border, known as the “Fahd”, with another battalion called “The Elite”, to reinforce the forces on the Egyptian border.

Egypt receives the body

Egypt had received the body of the 23-year-old soldier who carried out the accident, and he was buried in his family’s graves in the village of Al-Ammar, Toukh Center, in Qalyubia.

While this incident, which the borders between the two countries rarely witness, as it enjoyed relative calm, sometimes punctuated by gunfire as a result of the pursuit of drug smugglers and others, sparked a wave of criticism in Israel, especially through the local media, which considered it like a serious security breach.

While the official Egyptian version confirmed that the security man was chasing a number of drug smugglers, he crossed the Israeli border, and then an exchange of fire took place that led to his death and 3 other Israeli soldiers.

For its part, the Israeli army opened a joint investigation with its Egyptian counterpart, and opened a separate investigation to find out how the soldier infiltrated the interior.

It is noteworthy that Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and the borders between the two countries are often calm, but it witnessed repeated attempts to smuggle drugs, which led to live ammunition clashes in recent years between smugglers and Israeli soldiers stationed along the border.

However, in 2012, the “Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis” group claimed responsibility for an attack on the Egyptian-Israeli border, which resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier.

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