You remember the Egyptians getting their knickers in a knot regarding our apology to them over their soldiers being killed during the course of a gunfight with terrorists – terrorists who murdered 8 Israelis in cold blood?
The IDF did everything in its power to prevent Egyptian troops from getting hurt in last Thursday’s multiple terror attacks near Eilat, inquiries conducted by both the IDF and the Egyptian army showed. The IDF also found that at least three of the terrorists were Egyptian citizens.
Head of the General Staff’s Planning Branch Amir Eshel, who traveled to Cairo early this week to present to Egyptian officials the findings of the IDF’s initial investigation, even brought photographic evidence to the fact.
The evidence shows that contrary to Egyptian media reports, the IDF’s attack helicopters avoided hitting Egyptian military vehicles and troops stationed at the border.
Videos shot from the aircraft show that the troops intentionally diverted fire from the Egyptian all-terrain vehicles and soldiers towards open areas near the border base, from which the terrorist sniper fire originated.
The terrorists, who positioned themselves a few dozen meters from the Egyptian military post, launched an RPG rocket at one of the helicopters, and directed machine gun fire at it.
In addition, an examination of the bodies of the terrorists killed by the IDF clearly showed that at least three of them were Egyptian citizens. One was a member of a radical Egyptian group who was tried in the country.
He escaped form prison during the first days of the Egyptian revolution, when several Cairo prisons were broken into as hundreds of imprisoned Jihadist terrorists escaped to Sinai. Many had also reached the Gaza Strip and Egypt is demanding that Hamas extradite them.
The Egyptian terrorists joined Palestinian operatives from the Popular Resistance Committees and together they perpetrated the coordinated attacks. Israel also has further proof that joint Palestinian-Egyptian terror cells were in Sinai for weeks and were assisted by Bedouins in the region.
To Egypt: You should be apologizing to us for demanding we apologize. Not to mention allowing the flag of our embassy to be burned, and generally providing a fertile ground for antisemitism and hatred for all things Israel, despite our peace treaty.
To Israel: Stop apologizing!
Update: I guess Egypt will be expecting an apology from us for this as well.
Also according to the IDF investigation, the Egyptian troops noticed the presence of the terrorists even before the attack was launched, but did nothing about it. Only later that evening did an officer and a few soldiers leave their post, evidently to stop the ongoing sniper fire. The terrorists, who were wearing uniforms similar to those of the Egyptian army, resisted.
Possibly at this moment, when the troops and the operatives merged together, the Egyptian soldiers were shot. It remains unclear who fired the deadly shots, as the soldiers’ bodies have yet to be autopsied by the Egyptian authorities.
Israel has photographic evidence that GOC Southern Command Maj.Gen. Tal Russo personally ordered the forces fighting on the ground and in the air to be careful not to hit the Egyptian military post and its soldiers.
Israel was aware of these facts last week, but decided against releasing them in order to avoid embarrassing the Egyptian army and to dodge a media dispute over the versions of the events.
However, the information was submitted to Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which in turn invited an IDF representative, Maj.-Gen. Eshel, to present the findings in Cairo. Some of the findings were published in an Egyptian newspaper on Wednesday.
Avoiding diplomatic crisis
The Israeli authorities are aware that the Egyptian interim government is under great pressure to sever the diplomatic ties with Israel. One of the primary reasons that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the eight-minister forum decided against ordering an intensive military retaliation against the terrorist movements firing rockets from Gaza on Saturday night was their desire to avoid further damage to the relations with Egypt.
It was clear that such an operation can ignite the rage of the Egyptian public and result in further pressure from the Muslim Brotherhood to annul the peace accord with Israel.
Netanyahu and Barak, backed by most of the top ministers, decided instead to wait for a window of opportunity that would allow them to eradicate the rocket fire and terror acts from Gaza – after the spirits have calmed down.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
